Nebula's Anamoly

Level-Up

"25...26...27-oof." Eli fell to the floor after 27 push-ups. Recognising that pushing his body to the limit would guarantee stat points he kept working out.

To his satisfaction both his Strength and Endurance increased by +1, however as he continued to tire himself out he realised he had plateaued. Eli was capable of 30 pushups, more than double what he could originally do and yet after a certain point his attributes stopped growing.

[Determined Lv2- Raises attributes by 7.5% when 'Focused']

Eli had been tirelessly working out for nearly 2 hours before he decided to reach the conclusion that his stats would no longer improve. Opening up the interface and looking at his attributes he thought to himself the different ways he could improve each.

[STR: 7  DEX: 6  END: 6  INT: 7  LUC: 6  POW:5]

Strength was the attribute that was designated to how strong one's melee damage output was, it also contributed to how powerful of an attack the body could receive without taking damage, essentially a defense stat. Dexterity was the stat for speed as well as one's dodging capabilities which Eli, whose body would actually increase alongside the stats, thought was related to reaction-time. Endurance translated to one's stamina and much like strength, contributed to a defensive stat. Intelligence was designated to one's resilience to psychological attacks, and also their Mana-efficiency.

Mana-efficiency was a term that was coined by Nebula and attributed to how much MP would be consumed when using magic. Basically, two people could both have 150 MP and use the same spell repeatedly, however the individual with the higher Intelligence stat (or Mana-efficiency) would be capable of using the skill more often. Luck accredited to monster drops, loot boxes and factored into landing critical hits. Lastly, Power was allocated to one's proficiency in psychological attacks and the damage of ranged attacks as well as Mana-skill damage.

After some prolonged thinking, Eli felt that doing different activities would increase his stats, for this reason he began experimenting. After several hours of entertaining different types of exercises there wasn't much improvement. His END increased by another stat point but there were no other changes, he felt that if he was allowed to leave his room and use the space more freely then he'd be able to increase his other stats. Coming to that conclusion he had no idea how he would increase his intelligence or his luck stat.

'Perhaps reading and gambling?'

….

The next day Faye was scheduled to visit, bringing him a spare change of clothes and some snacks. Eli was sitting in his bed with his back propped against the frame while his interface was open. He was especially intrigued as it said-

[Active quest- Leave the hospital]

[Reward: 50 Exp]

-Eli found that by focusing on the quest he could find out it's rewards, what he was struggling with right now was how to leave inconspicuously .

Soon after he noticed a girl hobbling into his room carrying a plastic bag.

"Oh! Lemme take that off your hands." As he got up to take the bag Faye had given him a strange look, like she was confused. "Is it the blue hair? Still getting used to it huh?" Eli laughed.

"No...you...how do you put it? You look bigger." She scratched her head.

"Well I am still growing you know."

"Not in one day you don't, and still I don't just mean taller, you look generally bigger." Faye still seemed perplexed but decided to sit down and swiftly change the subject.

"Are they letting you go soon? It's boring without you to keep me company."

Eli realised he had gotten a little bigger, as he changed out the hospital gown and his clothes felt tight in particular areas.

"I say give it a day or two, they'll see I'm fine." Eli comforted her. The next moment, his eyes flashed as he had an idea. "Hey, you wanna go for a walk?" Faye smiled and quickly stood up.

"Sure." She couldn't hide her excitement.

Making his way outside Eli received a welcoming notification.

[Active Quest completed: 50 Exp]

[+5 Exp]

….

Several hours later, Faye had decided to make her way back home after conversing with her brother and Eli was now left alone outside, he smiled to himself, he now had the freedom to complete his daily quest of running for 15 minutes.

[DEX +1]

[END +1]

[Determined Lv3- Raises attributes by 10% when 'Focused']

[Daily Quest completed: 100 Exp]

[+10]

[Level Up:]

[Lv2]

[Max Health +10]

[+1 Free Stat point]

[Practice room unlocked]

[Inventory unlocked- 2/12]

[Mana-Sponge (x1) unlocked]

Eli's lungs were burning and he was unsurprisingly out of breath. He'd exhausted himself and he continued to take the cold air in, he only felt because his interface had blown-up with notifications. Giving himself a minute to process all of the information, he sat down on a nearby bench. Firstly, he assigned the free stat point into his strength start, this was because he felt that endurance was easiest to level-up and he had no need for the INT, LUC or POW stats at this moment in time, as he had no Mana nor did he need resistance against psychological attacks. He weighed the DEX and STR against each other and decided on strength.

Inventory and the Mana-sponge were two more things that Eli was familiar with, the inventory allowed the individual to carry a multitude of objects around with them, without it weighing them down, pushing past the physical boundaries of how much one could carry. The Mana-sponge was an ingame consumable item, that is typically used to absorb dark Mana or 'Miasma'. Miasma was a common obstacle within the game and after a group of adventurers expending one or two sponges they'd be able to pass. The Miasma Would slowly return until the BOSS of that area was defeated. This mechanic was a symbol in order to show other adventurers if the BOSS had been defeated or not.

What piqued his interest was that he apparently had 2 objects in his inventory, one of them was the Mana-sponge, the second he had no idea. Thus, he opened his inventory tab and noticed there was an item, in particular a necklace, but it was greyed out-

[Level 9 required]

-instead he decided to bring the Mana-sponge out and held it in his hand.

It looked exactly like the Mana-sponge in game, a grey pebble with blue swirls surrounding it. On one side was a strange hieroglyphic, like the number "8" except it was made from two diamond shapes instead of circles. Picking the Mana-sponge from his inventory, it materialised out of thin air with blue neon-like lights, appearing in the center of his palm. While it was in his hand it had caused a notification to appear on the interface-

[Compatable with body]

[Would you like to fuse? Y/N]

-now this was something he had never seen before. Neither was the 'Practice room', so Eli decided to hurry back inside and experiment.

Once back in his room he didn't even hesitate and chose to fuse with the Mana-sponge. The stone in his hand began to glow a bright blue and Eli was forced to shut his eyes.

[ERROR//]

[Calibrating…]

[Fusion Success]

Slowly Eli opened his eyes and gazed at his palm, which was now imprinted with the strange hieroglyphic from the stone. Another thing he noticed was that under his HP bar he now had a very tiny MP bar, except it was empty.

[Unique trait prerequisite match:]

[Unlocked- Drain]

[Drain- Absorb Mana for 2.5 Seconds. (Cooldown: 2.5 hours)]

Eli came to the conclusion to try out the ability, as he did the pattern on his palm began to glow blue and swirls of energy were absorbed.

[MP: 1/10]

'So I can't generate Mana but I can absorb it from the environment, I guess that's pretty cool' Eli thought to himself. No one had ever heard of a function like this in the game so the originality of the ability made Eli ecstatic. 'Now to try out the practice room function'. Eli focused on the Practice room tab from his interface, he chose the option to enter and the next second his eyes rolled backwards, he fell to the floor and everything went black.