At the corner of his vision, there was a stack of minimized notifications waiting for him. With a groan, he brought them to view.
[Scroll of Awakening] consumed.
You have unlocked the following abilities:
- [Inventory]
- [Profile]
"That seems quite useful, huh." He said, then continued reading.
System Announcement:
You have used a Skill Scroll that is more powerful than you can handle, which has caused physiological damage.
You lack any healing items or knowledge of healing magic. Injuries will heal slowly over time.
"A skill scroll? That sounds like a skill book, I wonder if those exist too. Where can I find more of these scrolls?"
There was no response from the user interface to his question, the notification still sitting in the center of his vision. He dismissed it, and explored the abilities he unlocked.
The inventory had rows of boxes that looked like any inventory system from the hundreds of RPG games he had seen or played. He had yet to test it, but he imagined it he could probably put items in and take them out at will. He groaned of the possibility of weight management or orientation of the items, but dismissed that thought to deal with later.
The other ability he unlocked was the profile. It displayed a human diagram, similar to the one for his health, but was a muted blue color. It displayed approximate values for his height, weight, and other physical attributes. One of the sections piqued his curiosity.
PROFILE
Name: Roy Ketran
…
MAGIC
- Mana: Nil
- Mana Capacity: Extremely Low
- Specialization: None
His mana was listed as nil, or none, which sounded right. Mana shouldn't be a thing that existed in the first place, but he was far past questioning the existence of magic, given the past day's events. His specialization being listed as none confused him. What the interface meant by that wasn't clear from the context. He would have to explore more to find out.
Roy closed his menu, standing up from the damp cave floor and stretched. He looked around the walls of the cave, noticing that the pattern of glowing symbols had changed. Now, white glowing symbols formed an outline of what looked like islands. Seven blue dots were scattered around, one along the edge of one of the smaller islands. He tapped his finger on that one in particular, recognizing the landscape around it as where he had woken up at. He dragged his finger along the wall, retracing his steps.
"This seems to be a map of the islands, and these blue dots must be the spawn points." He mused, examining the map. "I wonder why the scroll didn't unlock the map ability, considering there's one literally drawn on this wall. Maybe it has to do with this missing chunk." He traced the outline of the missing piece.
Where the mountain on the main island should've been was instead a missing chunk of rock, the topography lines in that area ending abruptly. There was no sign of debris on the floor of the cave, nor any indication of intentional removal. It looked like a small explosive had been set off behind it, ripping a hole right in the wall of the cave.
With nothing else left to look at, he crawled his way out of the opening he had entered the day before, squinting at the bright morning sun. The air was thick with morning dew, and mist blanketed the jungle floor. He recalled the puddle that had formed underneath him in the cave, figuring that rainwater had dripped down from above, or seeped in through the entryway.
Roy expected to hear songbirds chirping their morning tunes, but no sound other than his shallow breathing could be heard. That loneliness from when he first arrived on the island made his stomach twist in knots. He pushed the feeling down for now, exploring the area around the cave entrance for a way up to the top of the hill. The hillsides were steep, and the ground was too slick with mud.
For a fleeting moment, he glanced at the sheer cliff face overtop of the cave entrance, but quickly dismissed the idea of attempting to climb it.
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"Nope, I'd definitely die. Not going to try that."
He crawled back into the cave to re-examine the map. He hadn't recalled seeing the cave itself marked by any symbol.
"I have to be missing something. It's not like there's going to be a big 'YOU ARE HERE' sign, though." He sighed, glancing around at the incomprehensible symbols surrounding the island outline. There was still one thing he hadn't tried yet.
Brushing his hand against the wall, he looked for where the stone button to turn on the lantern was. It seemed to have retracted into the wall after he pressed it, he hadn't noticed at the time, though. There was no obvious outline standing out from the rocky walls of the cave, but the sudden appearance of a notification box in his vision gave him everything he needed.
Interactable: [Stone Button]
Reset?
[Yes] / [No]
"Yes!"
The button extended out from the wall, forming a box around the size of his fist. A white runic symbol glowed from the center of the button's surface, as the fading lantern light returned the cavern to darkness.
"Hey, that symbol wasn't there before. If it had, it would've been a hell of a lot easier to find in the dark."
Nothing else about the room changed after resetting the button. Roy did not hesitate to press it again. He mentally accepted the prompt the moment it appeared, eager to see what would happen.
To his surprise, his foolish plan actually worked.
"Hell yeah!"
As the button slid back into the wall, the white symbol turned to red, then grey. The lantern illuminated the space with a soft white glow, giving the cave an ethereal and almost dream-like feel. The outline of the map returned, this time a purple symbol appeared on the island he determined to be his, based on his spawn point.
"That's as close as I'm going to get to an obvious sign. I can't believe that actually worked."
A new notification appeared in his view a moment later.
Ability unlocked: [Map]
"Now that's what I'm talking about!" He raised his fist and did a silent victory dance.
The map in his user interface was more limited than he'd like, but he wasn't going to complain about a new ability. Most of the display was shrouded in dark clouds, except for the half of the island he had explored so far. The map only displayed the topography of the landscape, no markings for the spawn points or any other feature.
Roy left the cave behind for now, setting out to gather fallen tree limbs to bring back to the clearing outside the cave entrance. Small stones littered the ground around the jungle, and he used one to test out his new inventory ability. The first stone he picked up was about the size of his fist, and he mentally brought up his inventory display.
His first attempt to use the ability was to mentally command the rock to enter his inventory, which failed miserably. He thought about the ability for a moment, feeling around for that muscle memory he felt when first using the menu. He held the stone in his hand, and opened his left hand, stretching his fingers out wide. As he shoved the stone into his open palm, he tried commanding the rock to go into his inventory. The rock passed through his palm like a ghost, disappearing from sight. The first box in his inventory grid was now occupied by an icon of the stone.
"That easy, huh. Glad I didn't have to do some elaborate ritual or buy an expensive magic bag."
With the storage procedure down, the only thing left was to try taking it back out again. Roy reached his right hand into his left palm, commanding the stone in his inventory to come out at the same time. When his right hand emerged from his left again, he was holding the stone.
"Not bad, this should come in handy. I wonder if I can fit an entire branch in there?"
The nearest fallen branch to him was about a meter long and quite thick. He hoisted it up with his right hand, and guided it into his left palm, repeating the mental command. It passed right through seamlessly, appearing as an icon in his inventory like the stone had.
"That'll make hauling firewood a lot easier. Hopefully it won't rot while it's in there."
Roy spent the hour or so gathering fallen branches and small stones into his inventory. He pried leaves off of some branches and placed them in separately, in case he might need them in the future.
His reckless scavenging was interrupted by a faint red glow streaming out from under a fallen tree trunk. He crouched down next to the log, clawing at the bark and dirt to uncover whatever was emitting the glow. The shining surface of the golden object gave Roy pause. As he excavated more of it, the shape became more apparent.
Swirling red lines danced in a smoky black void underneath the golden frame of the dodecahedron artifact. He turned the object over in his hands, examining the intricate design. Due to his lack of knowledge of ancient civilizations, he was not surprised or disappointed at his inability to pinpoint the object's origin.
An experimental poke of his finger on the artifact did not bring up a window telling him information about it, much to his dismay. He tried putting it into his inventory, but it bounced off his palm, shocking him with a bright red spark in retaliation.
"Ow, damn it!"
He dropped the artifact back into the mud, but the surface remained immaculate and unstained. A notification appeared in his view.
You do not meet the requirements to store this item.
"Well, what are the requirements then?"
His user interface did not respond to his interrogations. The notification remained floating in the center of his vision.
"Guess I'll do it the old-fashioned way then."
He picked up the artifact and carried it with him as he continued walking. During his journey through the jungle, mapping out the landscape, he poked and prodded at his new toy. There was no real goal or obvious way for him to use this object, and his user interface did not seem to have the ability to analyze it either.
"I wish I could use that Wiki that's locked away. Whoever decided to lock menu options behind fetch quests and points of interests is a sadistic asshole." He muttered to himself, continuing to stumble through the thick undergrowth. His walking became trance-like, his mind wandering aimlessly down various trains of thought.
His trance was broken at the appearance of an unexpected notification.
Region: [Forgotten Islands] — [Island of Caves] has been fully explored.
Points of Interest have been marked on your [Map].
His island on the map was now rendered in much greater detail, showing different regions of vegetation, rock, and beach. A yellow dot marked the cave, and a blue dot marked his spawn point. Focusing his attention on the dots showed a tooltip showing the name of the Point of Interest. The cave he had found the scroll in was aptly named the "Cave of Awakening".
An unlabeled red dot appeared on the end of the beach closest to the main island. Roy hadn't recalled seeing anything on the beach while walking through earlier.
"Guess I'll go check it out, what could possibly go wrong?"