Roxyreads

Okay, legitimately, this chapter is just straight crack for any of you who like seeing someone mess with a stat menu.

For anyone eager for the story to roll forward, we'll get a bit of that next time around.

I wanted to handle this the way I thought Amber would; poking at everything and seeing about how it works.

In other news I'll have an up to date stat menu and inventory in a spoiler tag at the beginning and end of each chapter focusing on Amber from here on out.

I just gawked at the menu for a full minute before I even started to work. Thankfully the whole thing is hands free or else I might have a harder time getting the church cleaned up. It's only fair I do it, that goddess gave me some kind of bonus after all.

So I set to work, and split my attention as best I could, in the end I got pretty lost reading through the menu.

♦♦♦♦♦

“Okay, time to figure out what all of these numbers do; Its going to take a while, but I want to be sure I understand all of this.”

Bio seems like it keeps track of pretty basic stuff: name, age, race, gender, level, primary and secondary classes, and allegiance. The good news, everything in there seems accurate; bad news is that it doesn’t have my last name listed, so that's still a mystery.

“Is all of this based on what I know or think I know, or is it keeping track on it’s own? If I lose count of my age does it stop counting?”

"I guess the other good thing is that the race entry is a point in favor of other humans actually existing.

"The level section seems to add up all of my class levels, but I have no idea what the number in the parenthesis means."

"That allegiance thing concerns me, even if I do make it to a town, am I going to be killed if I don’t have the right one?"

"I’ll admit I’m not big on swearing allegiance as a concept; call it selfish or paranoid but about the only person I like answering to is myself... unless I’m getting paid at least.”

“Oh, so I guess I influence that pretty directly.”

After learning that little tidbit I focused on the [Expand] option for the Bio Menu and what came up was just a list of little tickboxes for what I want to display or hide; looks like it covers everything all the way down the stat sheet, but most of it is defaulted to ‘off’.

I noticed an option for ‘hidden’ but it’s grayed out and when I try and select it I get an error buzzer in my ear.

“Maybe it’s a skill? An ability? I should probably look into that.”

Mentally I added that to my to do list, pretty low on priority though; it’s not like I’m planning on being a secret agent or something, I just don’t like the idea of someone being able to read up on me that easily.

“That’s actually… how do you see someone else’s status? Probably another skill or ability… something like appraisal? A magic item maybe?”

Another question on the pile, they would probably be more easily answered if I could fucking read the manual. I was pretty nonchalant about that last night, but that just pisses me off. I have a thick-ass unabridged dictionary-sized book full of ostensibly vital information that the system directly told me to read, and it’s in some incomprehensible moon speak written with symbols that I can’t even recognize much less read.

"I even tried for a few minutes to see if there was a cipher, but if there is, it’s not one I recognize..."

I thought about that for another minute before something terrifying came to mind yet again.

“Oh shit, what are the chances that no one speaks english in this world?”

I did a bit of of thinking on that, and signs do not look good.

“Why would they? It’s not like there’d be the exact same conditions to produce the same language here.”

“Fuck I hope that’s a freebie, at least for spoken communication or else this just got a lot harder…”

I spent a while longer again considering a very big and frightening question about something a whole lot of fictional characters take for granted in those web novels. I can’t imagine it making sense, so I have to assume I’m going to be using vague hand gestures to communicate when I do meet people.

“Then again, the menu is in english for me at least, but it’s just as likely that it’s 'automagically' translated for my benefit.”

Moving on from right to left and ignoring the potential ramifications of that line of thought, we have Status Effects.

I’ve got two right now, one of them is pretty self explanatory well rested seems like its just something you get for having a good night’s sleep, it left me with a pretty important question on it’s own though.

“I slept suspiciously well for being heaped up on a pile of canvas over a stone floor after a seizure, what the hell is up with that?”

With no answers forthcoming, I considered the other one which was somehow simultaneously easier and harder to explain: lesser blessing of the unnamed goddess.

“I’m assuming that’s from whoever that statue depicts… Is she unnamed because I don’t know her name or is she literally just a goddess without a name?”

Of course I’m just a great big ball of questions talking to no one...

In the end I expanded out the status effect menu and let me tell you I was happy with what I saw.

I gave a low whistle, even without much context I knew that had to be a good effect; even better the duration was listed as Indefinite, I guess that means it can end but it’s not on a timer.

“The blessing gives me +50 to health, stamina, and mana and boosts their regen speeds a little too to boot; looks like it comes with an experience multiplier too. That's nice, 5 percent might seem small, but I have no doubt that shit is going to stack up quick.”

“Well rested is nothing to sneeze at either, I knew all my practice sleeping would come in handy.”

I liked well rested, even if it was on a duration counter; that’s pretty useful itself, I can use that to tell time er... at least relative to when I wake up.

Classes were next, and this is where things got really interesting

“So what happened yesterday counted as guerrilla warfare… that sort of makes sense, but honestly the whole thing feels like a fluke. It looks like experience is split between the classes… primary gets the most, followed by secondary… and I guess subclasses after that.”

“I’ll be the first to say it, I’m doing a lot of guessing here; but once again I reiterate, I could do less guessing if the manual were in english.”

I know I’m going on about that, but I think I have every right to be angry, anyway... back on topic.

I figured it might help if I pulled up the system log, I’m really glad that’s a thing I can do or else this would be a whole lot harder. Turns out you can have multiple windows open; that's also pretty helpful.

“Alright, reading through the log it looks like at least my current classes run through a cycle of bonuses every four levels with a special one every eighth, and I get a skill or ability every five… so maybe the next time I level up Mad Bomber I’ll get a new ability.”

“Leveling up seems to have increased a lot of stuff. I should be a whole lot more dexterous, intelligent, a bit wiser and more than a bit stronger and agile.”

At this point I took a second to flex… and it wasn’t pathetic. I’m not chiseled or anything but I have actual muscle definition. This is going to come in handy for clearing up the smashed pews and making this place presentable.

I do feel like I’m thinking more clearly now too. This is... somewhat frightening actually.

...

Moving on to titles…

“Right, so we come back to the question of all of these titles from my last life… again, I wonder who I was. I can’t even view the descriptions of these locked ones…”

I shrugged, not a lot to do about it, I’ll get the rest back eventually I suppose.

"Now... who is last hope referring to? I can't imagine I've had many chances to catch someone's attention that completely."

"Another important question, some of these descriptions are awfully... comedic, and I mean my sort of comedy; there's even a pop culture reference in there and as widely known as the Rambo movies are, I'm almost certain none of them have made it to another universe."

"This system has to be talking to me in terms I can understand, that's the only explanation I can think of."

More evidence of intelligence behind all of this. I'll have to ask someone if it does the same for them... If I ever meet another person that is.

Lets move on.

Time for the big one, attributes.

“It looks like I can use attribute points to increase everything, well… except for luck and the defense stats.”

I went ahead and punched in some points and my educated guess worked out; Constitution feeds into health, fortitude feeds into stamina, and willpower feeds into mana, I get five points for each one in those. Unexpectedly, Fortitude factors into Willpower… so I guess all of the secondary attributes are aggregates… again except for luck.

“I’m lucky on one front though, dropping those points in didn’t give me a seizure like last night, I hope that’s a one time thing; I think I’ll save the rest of my point allocations for when I go to bed down just in case it happens again.”

Skills next…

“Alright… so I have Class skills, Unrelated skills, and… 10 slots?”

After some doing, I figured out that I could equip Mental Resilience in one of those 10 slots… I can’t equip any Class skills so I assume that they’re all just already in effect.

Again though, there’s a ton of stuff locked off supposedly from my life before this whole mess.

Lets see about that skill buying thing, I have all those skill points.

“From the looks of it, I can only buy skills related to the class I have. I'm willing to bet that these aren't all of them either, maybe some have to be unlocked separately?”

"Oh, I am going to waste so much time with this later, even with that search function."

I'm certain I'll be back to that at some point, on to perks I suppose. Without having any, the actual perk menu wasn't really anything to look at so I skipped ahead to the purchase menu.

Perks looked pretty much the same as far as purchasing goes, lucky bit is I don’t have to equip perks and none of them seem class locked. Once again, I don’t think that’s a full list of all the perks; I'm almost certain I can unlock more.

"Oh, this is definitely worth checking out carefully later too."

The ability menu was like the skill menu in pretty much every way, I went ahead and equipped that surpass limits ability and took a peek at the purchasing window and that was just another mirror image. I suppose I know what to expect for now at least.

“Yep, just like skills… but it looks like I don’t get any from my last life. I’ll shelve spending points here too for now.”

Next is achievements... holy damn this is taking a long time.

“Okay, looks like I get bonuses just for doing things… I wonder what the difference between an achievement and a title is. Seems like there's a pretty thin line there.”

The rest of the menu was about what you'd expect, the quest log was empty save for the system records which were easy enough to read with the search function, the equipment screen told me my leather armor gave me 25 extra physical defense, and the inventory was just that same screen I'd pulled up last night.

After all that time sifting through the menu, I had a thought.

"You know... this whole thing strikes me as stunningly inefficient for quick reference. If this is all just being projected into my brain like I think it is, I should be able to do whatever I want for the display..."

"Oh yes please."

After that, everything was a blur; I tugged bits of it away, merged sections and basically redesigned the interface to be something a bit neater for everyday use.

♦♦♦♦♦

"...and there."

I took a moment to feel satisfied and looked over my tweaks, taking a mental inventory.

It was such a waste of space having my available skills and abilities split between class related and manually equipped so I decided to merge those two groupings and only display what I had available.

I'm glad I opted to mess with this bit specifically, because I learned that I can't remove an equipped skill or ability without a legend stone. Those things sound important, the log even mentions at the beginning before I got my classes; I'm gonna have find one.

I didn't have to think hard before I turned off the age and allegiance displays in Bio and slipped in a title display slot; it turns out you can wear them as a sort of vanity plate. Army of one might be a silly choice considering this is day two, but it makes me feel powerful and I think I'm going to need that. 

I shifted my resources up underneath classes, put my defenses just below them for quick reference and shoved the rest of my attributes to the right of that to fill space where the titles were.

Equipment, inventory, and quest log beneath that and everything else folded neatly away under unabridged status. When I focus on that, the original status menu pops up. I also realized that the 'buttons' are unnecessary, but I kept trying to manipulate the menu as a touch screen out of habit so I opted to leave them in.

All in all, I think this is going to be my new go to arrangement.

When I was finally satisfied and pulled my attention away from the menu, I realized I’d finished clearing the ground floor of the place up and I had an alert waiting for me.

"Well... that makes sense."

After all of that, I opted to sit down and have an early lunch, by my guess based on the position of the sun and the time left on well rested, it's maybe two hours before noon.

I checked and apparently multitasking is a class skill for combat alchemist, but cleaning isn't related to anything... considering the fact that I can't unequip skills, I'll probably leave it off and make do without; obviously I can clean without the skill.

Now... to eat some jerky.

Roxyreads

Woo! This took longer than expected, but I did have to design several menus and think out a lot of the rules.

For now, lets take a look at Amber's current status

Spoiler

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Status
Bio		Status Effects
[Name] - Amber [Age] - 27 [Race] - Human [Gender] - Female [Level] - 35 (35) [Allegiance] - Mercenary		[Lesser Blessing of The Unnamed Goddess] [Well Rested]
Bio Menu - [Expand]		Status Effect Menu - [Expand]
Classes		Titles
Primary Class: [Guerilla Fighter] Lvl 15 [79/2190] Subclass 1: [None] Subclass 2: [None] Subclass 3: [None] Secondary Class: [Combat Alchemist] Lvl 11 [779/874] Subclass 1: [Mad Bomber] Lvl 9 [239/485] Subclass 2: [None]		[Fearless Explorer] [Firebug] [Quick Study] [Army of One] [Last Hope] [Child of Strange Fortune]
Class Menu - [Expand]		Title Menu - [Expand]
Attributes
Resources
Health	Stamina	Mana
445/445	490/490	450/450
+38 /Day (+1 /Hour)	+415 /Hour (+6 /Minute)	+394 /Hour (+6 /Minute)
Primary Attributes
Constitution: 13	Dexterity: 28	Intellect: 34
Wisdom: 16	Might: 23	Charisma: 15
Vitality: 13	Fortitude: 25	Spirit: 13
Secondary Attributes
Agility: 31	Awareness: 28	Willpower: 28
Endurance: 17	Faith: 13	Luck: 37
Phys Def: 48	Mag Def: 21	Mt Def: 18
Attribute Menu - [Expand]
Skills		Perks
Class Skills	Equipped Skills
[Basic Compounding] Lvl 1 [Blind Toss] Lvl 1 [Dagger] Lvl 1 [Daring Leap] Lvl 2 [Dynamic Planning] Lvl 1 [Evasive Maneuvering] Lvl 3 [Iron Lungs] Lvl 2 [Lesser Endurance] Lvl 2 [Multitasking] Lvl 1 [Pain Resistance] Lvl 5 [Poison Resistance] Lvl 3 [Potion Sling] Lvl 1 [Simple Martial Arts] Lvl 1 [Sprinting] Lvl 2 [Stealth] Lvl 1 [Swimming] Lvl 3	[Mental Resilience] Lvl 5 [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty]
Skill Menu - [Expand]		Perk Menu - [Expand]
Abilities		Achievements
Class Abilities	Equipped Abilities	[Survive]
[Blast Compression] [Cheap Shot] [Directional Blast] [Lesser Elemental Resistance]	[Surpass Limits] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty]
Ability Menu - [Expand]		Achievement Menu - Expand
Equipment Menu - [Expand]	Inventory Menu - [Expand]	Quest Log - [Expand]

[collapse]

Not a whole lot of changes from start to finish, but later chapters might have some crazy events, who knows~

Anyway, thanks for reading, stay tuned for the next chapter in which Amber actually does some stuff (after a bit of inventory management)