In the middle of a hot summer day the sounds of water splashing and children screaming could be heard. It was a nice day overall, not too hot, yet hot enough for a good swim at a beach. 

That was exactly what Evelyn was doing. It was a weekend and she had some free time, so she chose to enjoy it to its fullest at the beach with her friends. She had been quite self-conscious about her looks but ultimately decided to give it a try after the constant insistance from her friends. 

So there she was, in a pair of dark blue shorts and a black tank top, hanging out on a floating raft with a few of her friends.

------

If I'm gonna be honest with myself, I'm pretty scared. Not only because I'm on a shaky raft, but also because there's just so many people here. I mean, what if someone says that I don't pass? I know that ship has sailed a long time ago but-

"Oi, Evy!" Evelyn was brought out of her thoughts by her friend's voice. As she looked up, she saw her friends looking at her.

"Yeah, what's up?" She asked. 

Her friend, Martin, shook his head and sighed, "You're spacing out again, are you sure you're okay?" He asked with concern clear in his voice.

"I'm fine, just a bit spaced out." Evelyn responded.

"We can go back to the beach if you'd like to?" Piped up her other friend, Kaylee.

"Nah, I'm okay, just need to get used to the raft's wobbling." Evelyn shook her head and said.

"If you say so..." Kaylee responded skepticaly.

As they continued enjoy the sun and chat idly the wind suddenly picked up and the waves rose a lot higher. The raft they were on began to shake violently, and before she realised it, Evelyn was underwater.

Quickly breaking the surface, she panicked. She knew she sucked at swimming, she also knew that the shore was about a hundred meters away. Knowing that, she began to look for her only option to safety, the raft she had been on moments prior. But, as she looked around, she saw it, or perhaps she herself, had managed to drift at least a dozen meters away.

Panicking even more, she began to desperately swim towards the raft, on top of which her friends were yelling for her. But no matter how hard she seemed to swim, the raft kept getting further away, and she was quickly getting tired.

As dread began to settle in she started frantically looking for something, anything to latch onto, as she felt herself slowly sinking.

But, as hopelessness began to sink in, she saw it. A vistage of land, seemingly the forestside shore. Giving it a little more thought than, wasn't it further away?, she began frantically swimming towards it.

She saw it getting closer, the shore clearer now as her focus zeroed in on it, but she also felt her arms quickly losing strength. Now even more scared and motivated not to drown she gave it her all as she neared the last stretch to the shore.

With a last push she reached her hand out and- fell. With a thud, she landed on solid ground, heaving and crying all the while. Not even registering the pain of the landing she laid there, recollecting herself.

A few minutes passed by before she began to look around. What she saw puzzled her. She was in a tiny clearing in a forest, not a lake in sight, yet she knew she had been in one moments prior, since her clothes were still very wet.

Wiping away her tears and shakily standing up she look around once more, trying to recall what had happened and how she ended up in a forest. 

Umm, let's see, I remember panicking and swimming towards the shore, even though the forest side shore wasn't supposed to be that close... Wait, I don't think I saw more than that tiny bit of shore, and it had that weird shimmer around it, now that I think about it... Being a lot more calm now and not focused on not drowning, she began to realise just how weird her situation truly had been.

Wait wait wait, so, shimmering edge around the only bit of forest I saw, getting to it and... falling? through it into a forest... Did I just, did I just go through a fucking portal?!

As the thoughts of the event and different possibilities flew around in her head she began to feel nauseous. Taking a deep breath and trying to steady herself she was, uderstateably so, quite startled and yelped when a blue box popped up in her vision.

You have gained mana poisoning resistance level 1

As she cursed at whatever this thing was for almost giving her a heart attack she was assaulted with a flurry of blue boxes each with a message of text on them.

Taking a deep breath and calming herself once more she didn't even bother to read what was on them as a few new ones kept popping up every second. Instead, she looked on curiously, slightly stunned at the current happening and having a slight idea of what's going on.

After almost an entire minute of waiting the blue screens stopped appearing. I suppose that's as good a cue as any to start reading what was on these box screen thingies.

Trying, and failing, to look around the topmost screens to see the bottom ones she was slightly surprised to see the bottom one pop up onto the front. It was the first message she received, the one about mana poisoning, and as she looked at it she tried to understand what it ment. She was once more surprised when text popped up under the level up notice.

Mana poisoning resistance: Lessens the effects of mana poisoning and increases resistance towards it.

"Is that why I don't feel nauseous anymore?" Evelyn asked herself aloud.

Let's see, can I get rid of the message- oh, it's that simple, so I just have to think and it will appear and go away? Neat, I guess. She mused and began to look at the other messages.

Synchronising being to the world. Creating status. Status creation complete.

You have gained linguistics level 1

Linguistics has reached level 2

...

...

Linguistics has reached level 8

Linguistics has reached level 9

You have gained meditation level 1

Meditation has reached level 2

Meditation has reached level 3

You have gained dancing level 1

Dancing has reached level 2

Dancing has reached level 3

Dancing has reached level 4

You have gained cooking level 1

Cooking has reached level 2

...

...

Cooking has reached level 6

Cooking has reached level 7

You have gained-

Okay that's of enough blue boxes. Isn't there a way to get an overview of it all? Since it's an another world with a system and all, and it did mention status... Do I just have to think about it or- ah, there it is!

Status

Name: Evelyn Highlands

Race: human

Vitality: 6

Strength: 6

Endurance: 7

Perception: 6

Dexterity 6

Wisdom: 13

Intelligence: 14

Willpower: 13

Class: ——

Class skills: ——

Titles: 

Realm traveler

Lucky

Unique: 

Manaless

Sturdy bones

General skills:

Linguistics level 9

Meditation level 3

Dancing level 4

Cooking level 7

Camping level 6

Shield mastery level 3

Shortsword mastery level 2

Battle awareness level 3

Fear resistance level 2

Mana poisoning resistance level 1

Okay, wow, that's a lot to take in. Let's see, first of all, my name and race, simple enough. Then there's my stats? most of the physical one are at 6 though, at least the mental ones are quite high, I think. It would be a lot easier if I knew what this world's avrage is, but oh well, can't win 'em all.

As Evelyn was looking over her status screen, se sat down and idly began to tidy her hair.

Next up, class and class skills, which I have neither of, kinda weird but I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, so, whatever.

After those comes titles and unique. "Title" is simple enough, but what the hell is "unique"? Does it work like skill with text popping up? I can try...

Unique: refers to bloodlines, hereditary skills, title skills and other unusual anomalies related to one's body and soul.

There we go! Easy enough. So, bloodlines, hereditary skills... Souls? Souls exist? Today I learned, huh. This all is starting to give me a headache, or is it that damned mana poisoning again?

Rubbing her forehead, she continued on.

Well, anyways, titles and uniques, gotta look those over.

Realm traveler: one who has traveled to another real, be it willingly or not.

Lucky: you have survived a near death experience by factors completely out of your control, which many may dub as luck.

Manaless: you were born without a spec of mana in or near you. Your body will take time to adabt to mana. Shaping mana is easier for you.

Sturdy bones: your bones are harder and denser.

Well, they're interested to say the least, and at least now I know why I was absolutely abysmal at swimming she chuckled to herself.

Now, last but not least, general skills. There's quite a few of them. All of them kinda make sense, I'd say dancing is kinda iffy since the last time I danced was a few years back. The masteries and battle awareness should be from those mock battles at the summer camp, which, again, was a few years ago. Camping is obviously from camping. Meditation I took up a few months ago. Linguistics is from in-depth learning in school. Cooking is absolutely obvious. Fear resistance too since I'm terrified of drowning, though I wouldn't say that I'm resistant to it. That leaves mana poisoning resistance, which is quite interesting. With a thought she summoned the skills description.

Mana poisoning resistance: you resist the invasion and saturation of raw mana in your body better.

Well, it's quite simple, which I like. It also means that mana and therefore magic exists! Gosh I wanna wield magic, but that's for later, right now I need to figure out just where the hell I am. She thought as she stood up.

Stretching a bit she looked down on her wet clothes and frowned. "That's gonna be annoying." She muttered.

Looking around a bit she scanned her surroundings for a big and sturdy stick. She knew that forest animals were dangerous, probably more so in another world, so she wanted to have at least something at hand to use if the need arose.

After a bit of searching she found a suitable one. Picking it up and giving it a few swings, she was quite happy with how it felt. Deciding to give it a few finishing touches she broke off a few extra bits from the stick, which was surprisingly difficult to do, further reinforcing her opinion on it.

Giving it a final look over, she was quite happy with it, it's a nice stick. It was around a metre long if she had to guess and was quite heavy in her hands.

Looking around once more she wondered where she should go. With a shrug she chose left from where the sun was supposed to rise, I think it's north, at least I hope it's north. With a final shrug she began to trek towards hopefully north.