The moment she accepted the offer from Jack the window disappeared in her vision with a pop. Alexia was a bit confused for a second before a surreal feeling overcame her as energy began to flow throughout her body. It genuinely felt like a lover's gentle touch tenderly caressing her from the inside out. It felt like it was searing her with an intense gaze as if it was memorizing her entire body. When it had finished there was a masculine voice inside her head that said “User Profile updating… Updated.”

Feeling a bit light headed from the intimate rush of energy, Alexia had to kneel to recover her breath. While she was doing that she observed something was in her peripheral vision, or rather it seemed to be outside her vision entirely and in her mind. Before she could properly examine what it was, another blue window popped up.

 

 

 

After a moment of looking at it, Alexia realized she was actually looking at a representation of herself called a Status Screen. With a single thought she found she could expand each of the panels into more information. While she felt unnerved a little at first, she grew more comfortable as she went over the status.

When she came to the skills part, Alexia frowned in thought. Assuredly she had accumulated far more skills than this during her life. Focusing on the Basic Sword Fighting skill, she found it detailed various movements that she had learned. It mentioned it could be upgraded to Intermediate Sword Fighting after a certain level.

Putting aside her investigation into the skills for a more overdue time, Alexia shifted her attention to her attributes. She took note that her current highest attribute was Charisma. She had no way to tell if her stats were high or low as she had nothing to compare them too. Looking at Charisma, she saw it had in part something to do with appearance. Alexia knew she was attractive, to the point of drawing the eyes of others ever since she had grown into her body.

Standing at Five Ten, she had been lanky when she was younger but then she grew in several ways. Her red hair had grown past her shoulders and her emerald colored eyes seemed to draw in people. Her eyes were one of her best features according to her past lovers. 

Shaking her head, she forced her mind off her past trysts with her lovers. Looking at the other areas in the status screen she saw that under the class part it was telling you to choose a class. From the information that was slowly flowing into her head, she was able to tell that Class represented a job or a role. Focusing her mind on this, another screen popped up to the side of the Status Screen.

 

 

 

 

As there were only four classes at the moment, Alexia found it was pretty limited in options. Even so these were what she had access to at the moment. From looking at it, she knew she could switch her class later if she selected one she disliked. Examining each of them in turn, she was able to quickly eliminate a few that did not suit her at all.

When her father died, they abruptly lost the home they had and were forced to move to the city. They moved into the slums which let her see the underworld of the city up close and personal. Thugs roamed the streets and her step-father John besides being a loser had sticky fingers. This has always never sat right with her and she despised the very idea of ever acting like them.

Looking at the Class list, Rogue reminded her of those criminals that resided in the slums, and she hated that thought. Alexia would never select something that reminded her of her step-father. No, that would not do at all. Therefore, Alexia crossed off Rogue from the list.

Taking a look at the Ranger class, she thought of the few times she had gone into a forest. While she had not detested it, she knew it was not for her as she loved being in a city. While she loved to travel, communing with nature was not one of her interests. Especially with numerous herb gathering missions which frequently left her bug bitten and itching from plants. 

She did like the idea of taking out enemies from afar, though, so she was tempted to pick it in spite of the downsides. The problem was she had never even shot a bow, thus the main reason to pick the class was wasted on her. Not to mention she doubted that Jack would give her a bow the moment she picked the class. As a result she decided against picking the ranger class.

Leaving the last two, she was of the opinion that Warrior would definitely be an immediate help for her. Alexia already was equipped with a sword and had a fundamental skill for it too. With her limited experience in fighting mostly in bar fights, picking Warrior would be a suitable choice if she wanted to be able to protect herself in the sewers.

While she liked to fight from afar, she was more comfortable fighting up close and personal. She had often sparred with her brother wielding a stick of course. Which is probably where she had gotten her skill of sword fighting from. Therefore out of the options so far this would have been her choice, had the last class caught her complete attention.

When she saw the Mage class, it brought up long ago memories of her talking with her brother back at their old home. They would often stay up at night discussing their plans for the future. Both of them wished to travel the world and make a name for themselves through the Mission guild. Her brother wished to eventually become a knight and hold a title. He would gain a property on which he could support his family with.

As for Alexia she dreamed of becoming a Mage ever since one visited their village. A friendly woman who wore a cloak with stars embroidered on them performed various magic tricks to entertain the children of the village. This fascinated Alexia and she asked the Mage how to become one. She was informed that the best way to become a mage was to join with the Magic Guild.

However, the Magic Guild wouldn’t just accept anyone off the streets. At best if she went ahead and joined, she would be an apprentice for years before she even touched magic. On the flip side, if she was able to get a big name in the Mission Guild, she would have a better shot at learning magic. Till then she wetted her taste for magic through the tales of Mages and magic battles.

Unfortunately, this dream came crashing down when her father died in an accidental fire. This incident left her mother mentally broken, and she was forced to keep watch over her mother. Her brother still strived for his dreams, but after his accident and eventual death Alexia thought she would never have the chance to ever use magic.

Shaking her head, Alexia brought herself out of her memories back to the present. This Jack, god or system was offering her an opportunity to begin walking down that path again. The long forgotten desire began to overwhelm her, and she had to resist immediately selecting the Mage class. Alexia began considering the pros and cons of selecting the mage class.

The first con she could think of was that she didn't learn offensive magic right away thus making her weaker then selecting a warrior class. Which would make the whole point of agreeing to become Jack’s User pointless. The second con would be she had no idea how spells would work. The information she could get was vague and confusing.

A positive was she would be following her dreams. Second, even if she could not get offensive magic, she could get a grant from the magic guild as long as she demonstrated the ability to cast a spell. Plus she might be able to get the Magic guild to help her out with Malv. After debating several moments, she finally selected Mage as her class.

The moment she selected the class her world shook. It felt as if a great door opened and a flood of knowledge poured into the recess of her mind. She suddenly realized in addition to the knowledge she could feel the magic energy in the air and her mana pool residing within her. It felt almost like warm water flowing across her skin.

After getting used to the feeling of magic, she realized she had gained the knowledge of how to utilize the mana within her to form spells. Things that would have taken an apprentice mage decades to learn were now ingrained into her very soul. With a single thought she could call forth the mana within her to create the framework of any spell she knew and could possibly create her own spells.

When she was going through this massive amount of knowledge, a new blue screen appeared in front of her.

 

 

 

Taking in the information from the screen, she closed them with a thought. Now that she had the chance, she took the opportunity to take a look at those things hiding away outside her peripheral vision. Focusing on them, she read them from the top down as Menu, Status, Inventory, Equipment, Map, and lastly System Store. 

Alexia found that she could positively interact with them with her mind. Activating the status screen, she brought up her status again. She found it had now been updated with the choices she had made. Curious to see what benefits her new title granted her, she brought up the information on the title.

 

 

After closing the new windows, she returned her attention to the Menu option. Unfortunately, it appeared most were unavailable at this time as they were greyed out and unresponsive. Unfortunately, it appeared most were unavailable at this time as they were greyed out and unresponsive. Alexia did find three of the options were able to be used at the moment. They were Quests, Journal, and Glossary in that order. She focused for now on Quests which opened a new menu and brought up a few quests that she had including the one she had just accepted from the mission guild.

 

 

As she read over the Mission Guild Quest, she was startled to find that the quest was rated as C by Jack. Looking at it, it felt like Jack had derived the knowledge of mission ratings from her and adapted it so she could comprehend how he rated the missions. 

Using the guidelines created by the Mission Guild Level C Missions was ones that needed the assigned personnel to either have specialized skills or was working in a large enough group to handle the mission. It of course did not necessarily mean the mission was dangerous, only that it required something extra. If Jack had not contacted her, there was no way that Alexia would have been able to complete the mission.

Based on this she was tempted to go back to the Mission guild to complain about the disparity of the two ratings. Without any proof however, they would ignore her complaint and issue a fine for giving up the mission. Which would only dig her deeper into the whole John dug her family into.

Closing the Quest screen, she took a look at the Journal option. When she pulled up the Journal option, she noticed it contained a very brief description of her entire life. She found she could pull up more information on her past, but it was limited to what she already knew. Having no apparent need for this at the moment, she moved on to the Glossary option. Going through it, she found it was more or less a dictionary of terms from Jack. 

Seeing nothing else of interest in the Menu options, Alexia brought up the Inventory screen next. Opening it, she saw it held a set of fifteen slots. Upon opening it, she realized that she could put and pull things from it. She did not even have to open it up. Alexia could access it with a single thought and know what she had in it without looking. This was an astounding ability, as only nobles or high ranking people ever got a hold of a spatial bag, but now she had one attached to her.

 

Seeing she no longer had to carry her bag she sent it into the Inventory. As she did so she found that if she had similar items they would be able to share the same slot. Each slot could hold a fairly bulky object. For larger objects she could combine slots up to a maximum of three slots. In the inventory screen she could now see a picture of the bag.

Not having anything else to place into the Inventory for now, she brought up the Equipment screen. She was surprised to see a picture of a woman that she recognized as herself. It was incredibly detailed and listed all her clothes and even her hairstyle. Fiddling with the controls, she found she could change her hairstyle which she did into a ponytail. There also seemed to be several options that were locked for the moment including a makeup option.

Alexia also noticed that in the Equipment Screen they had the ability to save several different outfits and gears into profiles. She could then swap the profiles when she needed them. Though the gear needed to be either on her or in her inventory. With this she could switch out gear to get ready for any situation that she could face.

Satisfied that it would be useful she turned her attention to the Map screen. Having only seen crudely drawn maps before she was completely surprised by the incredible detail provided by the map. Everywhere she had ever been in her life was filled out, it even included the names of those places. There was a grey fog over those areas indicating she had no knowledge of what was going on there. The map was lit in the area she was standing. In fact by focusing she could move the map onto differing levels.

Wherever she had never been however was pitch black. On the side of the map Alexia found that she could search for things on the map. As long as she had been near it and or seen it, the map would be able to point it out to her. Having never seen the city so detailed before, she looked at it and got a sense of scale for the sewers ahead.

While this map would be incredibly useful, in fact it could be said to be one of the more powerful abilities Jack had granted her. Yet with it came with immense danger, until Jack became well known and accepted she would not breathe a word of this ability to anyone. Otherwise, she would risk being captured by either the nobles or the military.

The last thing Alexia checked out was the System Store. It had several differing pages each with a different offering. The various things for sale were Skills, Items, Bonuses, Quests and a few locked types. As she flipped through the pages, she saw the prices for the items ranged wildly. For the purchase of skills, they required skill points, most of the powerful skills cost hundreds of skill points, some even going over thousands. Some of the skill points even required special items or completing various tasks.

Glancing through the other items in the store, Alexia nearly swore at the prices they were so absurd. Even a King would become a pauper at some of the things for sale. For a sword listed as a nanoedge blade you needed to hand over control of a world. Ignoring the things, she obviously could not afford, Alexia began to think on what she really needed at the moment.

Even though she had gained an attack spell, Alexia needed some way to defend herself. Clearly armor would be the best for that, but that was completely out of her price range. Even the cheapest armor in a store would be at least ten small silver coins. Her sole option was to pick out a defensive skill from the system store.

When she became a User, Alexia had gained four free skill points. It was not enough to get a really good skill, but it would be better than nothing. After she had examined the skills, she finally settled on one that seemed promising. Since it was a fire skill and mage skill it was double discounted, its original price was sixteen skill points, down to four.

 

 

After purchasing it and feeling the rush of the skills knowledge. She felt she was now ready enough to head into the Sewers. After taking a deep breath Alexia cautiously opened the door and stepped through to the sewers beyond.