Chapter 2: The System

 

Suddenly James found himself standing in the middle of a forest. Tall pines surrounded him, blocking any view of the sky he would have otherwise had. Looking down James saw that the forest floor was blanketed by a layer of dried out pine needles.

 

He thought back to what had happened. He had been making a joke about his Wizard Tower upgrading when a feminine robotic voice told him he was being sent to the Tower or something. James took a look around as if hoping that the trees would provide an answer to why he was brought here. However, the trees offered no response. In fact the forest was completely quiet. Not the sound of a bird chirping, nor the sound of a slight breeze blowing through the forest could be heard.

 

James decided to ignore the forest’s silence for now. He had a sneaking suspicion about the weird feminine robotic voice he had heard earlier.

 

“System,” he said out loud, but nothing happened.

 

He tried again, “status.”

Name: James Wall

Age: 24

Gender: Male

Level: 0

 

Strength: Average (Tier 0)

Agility: Above Average (Tier 0)

Dexterity: Average (Tier 0)

Vitality: Average (Tier 0)

Endurance: Above Average (Tier 0)

Intelligence: High (Tier 0)

Charisma: Average (Tier 0)

Magic: Locked

 

Physical Status: Healthy

Mental Status: Mildly Confused

 

Skills(active): None

Skills(passive): None

Skills(special): None

Skills(bloodline): None

 

Points: 0

Shop: Locked

System Messenger: Locked

Tower Floor: Floor 1

 

James nodded to himself. ‘So it's one of these things, huh,’ he thought. James considered himself a pretty well cultured person, so naturally when he had heard the feminine sounding robotic voice, he had immediately thought of the famous system web novels.

 

James looked over his status screen. It appeared as a holographic blue menu that floated in the air. His stats looked pretty standard to him, so he carried on his examination further down his status screen. His skills were about as basic as they could get, though he was a little disappointed that he did not have any secret bloodlines, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.

 

Now he looked over the last section of his status. He didn’t know what the points were for, but he suspected that they might be used to buy things from the shop. He examined the shop part of his status more closely and suddenly some text appeared before him floating right next to the part that read “Shop: Locked”.

 

[The Shop function has been locked until the user reaches level 1]

 

James nodded once again, that was pretty standard for system web novels as well. He focused on the System Messenger this time, and once again text appeared.

 

[The System Messenger function has been locked until the user reaches level 3]

 

Lastly, James focused on the Tower Floor part of his status.

 

[Current floor: 1/100, floor progress 0%, tower progress 0%]

 

‘Oh, that seems useful, so there seems to be 100 floors in this tower thing, and I’m on the first one. Although looking around, this does not seem like the inside of a tower at all.’

 

---

 

After James looked over his status screen, he decided to focus on the more immediate problem on hand. He was stuck in a silent forest, and he had no idea how to get back to his home in Cismont.

 

James decided to start off by attacking the root of the problem. He realized that maybe if he could find the reason he was sent to this forest in the first place, then maybe he could use that same method to send himself back. He tried to remember what that robotic voice had told him before he had been sent to the tower. ‘I think it was something about a request I made being accepted, and something about the keyword ‘tower’ being said,’ James thought. And suddenly, like the last piece of a puzzle falling the place, the full picture was revealed to James.

 

When James was joking about his wizard tower upgrading, he had said the word ‘tower’, which had been the keyword, which had inadvertently sent him to the tower he was in now. ‘So James thought, if saying the word ‘tower’ brought me here, then maybe another word could bring me back!’

 

Feeling pretty proud of this revelation, James excitedly said ‘home!’

 

[The user has not set a location as home; therefore the user cannot be transported. Please try again when the user has set a location as their home]

 

James rubbed his eyes. ‘Of course things wouldn’t be this easy,’ he thought.

 

James tried to think of another solution to his problem, but alas that was futile, as he couldn’t think of anything else that might work. ‘I guess the only thing to do now is bite the bullet, and humor whatever this tower thing is,’ James thought.

 

And so James took his first step forward in the Tower.