They had some serious munchies. On top of roaring over and over into the skies, they’d chewed through several umbrellas and wooden benches like they were popsicles, then started posturing like they were doing something impressive. This attracted a few nearby golems, who immediately tried their luck getting to me through the water. Eventually, they gave up and joined the others in wrecking the place.
I wasn’t paying much attention anymore. I was sunbathing, feeling the wind move my yacht back and forth, when I was startled by a system message:
Out of Combat.
You have leveled up!
You have leveled up!
You are Level 3. Please assign stat points.
My screen appeared before me:
Alexander Dimple
Race: Human
Class: None
Attributes:
Strength: 12
Dexterity: 9
Constitution: 11
Intelligence: 5
Wisdom: 9
Charisma: 6
Perception: 3
Unallocated Stats: 3
Skill Development: 3
Hidden Skills: ???
I was a little offended by my intelligence. I knew I wasn’t the smartest in my prep school, but I didn’t realize I was that far behind. Same with my perception. I was better at finding lost stuff in my house than my dad.
System. Error. Updating System.
What?
The screen updated to show new categories: Regeneration, Combat, Utility, Crafting, and Survival. There were still the stat points and development points, but nothing else.
It made no sense. Regeneration should list the different things it regenerated. Like health regeneration.
Health regeneration suddenly showed up under regeneration. When I considered increasing my mana pool, it appeared in the Combat tab.
Other options emerged as I thought about them: accuracy, damage reduction, physical penetration, and magic penetration—all in Combat. Movement speed and luck were under utility. Crafting quality and crafting speed were in Crafting.
I tried to think of what might pop up in survival.
Foraging?
No. That was in utility.
Hunger and thirst resistance?
Yep.
It was as if each of the original stat categories had been divided into smaller stats I could increase individually. Instead of just strength boosting my body’s power and maybe a little health, I could enhance those aspects separately.
At first, I thought it was unfair. Then I saw I had fifteen stat points instead of only three. Each point would increase any stat by 0.5%, even the mana pool. I still only had three development points, though.
It was kind of overwhelming. I’d need to select a few stats to improve from the categories, and if I spread it out too much, 0.5% per stat point would do nothing.
I tapped the hidden skills tab, bringing up…nothing? I had to at least have one skill, like archery.
The skill popped up.
Okay… so these skills were hidden, too.
How about breathing?
It appeared.
Fear resistance?
It appeared. The sight of the mana golems was still fresh in my memory.
Hunger resistance?
It didn’t appear. I also wasn’t hungry.
I punched, thinking about a punching skill.
I got it.
How about an uppercut? A jab?
I got both.
I thought about my endocrine system, How it was constantly regulating my hormones.
Nothing.
Huh.
It probably didn’t matter. While I liked seeing the skills pop up, having them didn’t change anything. There was no rank next to them—not even a description or a level. I still felt scared when I thought about getting close to the mana golems, and I wasn’t going to go pro in boxing anytime soon.
Maybe if I press the question mark near skill development?
System. You may mix and match skills! Want to combine or improve a skill? Just pick the skill and say how you want it to develop. You will get three different skills you can develop it into. Development points gained will decrease as you pass watershed levels.
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“I choose archery, and I need more arrows.”
System. Analyzing. Skill paths for archery are as follows:
- Arrow Crafting: Craft arrows using available raw materials.
- Quiver Mastery: A 1% chance for an extra arrow to appear in your quiver every day.
- Mana Arrow: Create an arrow from mana. Costs 1 mana.
Arrow Crafting was useless. I was on a yacht. I could try deconstructing some of the materials—there was metal and wooden boards that I could break into arrow shafts.
But the way my dad would look at me if I told him I destroyed his precious yacht?
No thank you.
It would be the surest-fire way of being disowned, and I still wanted an easy life.
Quiver Mastery made my long-buried gamer quiver. Infinite arrows? Yes, sir.
Alas, I didn’t have any quivers. There was a reason I said “more arrows.” Nowhere did I mention a quiver.
Maybe the inventory counted as one, but the risk wasn't worth it. I didn’t even have arrows to work with. I stared longingly back at the shores.
The mana golems were still destroying the beach. None of my system arrows were in sight, of course. I wasn’t in the same area where I had fired the arrows. Even if I could get to shore and back safely, durability tag notwithstanding, the arrows all snapped when the mana golems crunched down on them.
That left Mana Arrow as the only viable option.
“Mana Arrow.”
System. Retry by visualizing the desired skill? Caution: Failure possible without proper knowledge.
I soundly refused. I knew nothing about the system, or about how to make a Mana Arrow. It was why I was developing it in the first place.
I expected something—maybe knowledge, maybe euphoria. I had to double-check my status screen to confirm that, yes, I had the skill. It wasn’t even hidden; it just sat on a new skills page on my status screen. And a Level 1.
I could level this.
No time like the present.
I focused hard on creating a mana arrow. Nothing happened.
I spoke aloud, “Mana Arrow.”
A faint outline of the arrow appeared above my hands, flexing before condensing and falling into my palms. It felt neither warm nor cold—just room temperature.
Still Level 1.
I placed it in my inventory, where it read as “Mana Arrow +1,” with a durability of 10/10. I repeated “Mana Arrow” again and again until, suddenly, a wrenching feeling twisted inside me. Five mana arrows, each costing one mana.
Surprise, surprise, I had five mana points—just like the five points of intelligence that showed earlier.
Okay. I was still bitter about only having five intelligence. I’d forgotten my other stats already, but I remembered that one, specifically. And now that I couldn’t raise my intelligence, the world felt just a little darker.
It was with a heavy heart that I allocated all 15 points into mana regeneration for a whopping increase of 7.5%.
There were a lot of other things I could have done. But 7.5 percent in my mana pool wasn’t even a point, and the other stats were plain confusing. Physical damage, ranged damage, melee damage, versatile damage, true damage, hidden damage… what was even what anymore?
Besides, I one-shot the mana golems. I wouldn’t need more damage anytime soon. And without arrows, I’d be left doing–
And–
I know. A lot of ands.
–And the fact that the most convenient skill used mana?
That was telling. There had to be a way to increase mana recovery… maybe even through developments. Once my arrow issues were settled, and if I needed a larger damage boost, I could try to get a compound bow with a higher draw weight, then focus on increasing my attack speed and damage to better scale as the enemies grew bigger, tougher, and faster.
This was all assuming there wasn’t an ultimate meta that trumped all metas…like fighting with artifacts or using the power of space to rip things apart.
I was drumming my thumb on the steering wheel trying to figure out what to do next when I had an “aha” moment. I activated the windlass and pulled up the anchor, then returned to the helm and started up the yacht.
I’d forgotten—there had to be marine diesel stashed in the cabinets on these yachts drifting around. Maybe even food and water.
I gave the engine a little time to warm up, using the time to look over all the dials again. I wracked my head at a few controls, trying to remember the diagrams I looked at and what Uncle George had said.
The lever for the throttle controlling the yacht’s speed was fine, the panel for the autopilot, the radio… the radio didn’t work? The GPS didn’t work either. The gauge for the depth finder did work.
The rest of the controls were opaque to me, but they couldn’t be that important, right?
I set sail back to where I had been.
There were little tags above each boat.
[Abandoned Fishing Boat]
[Abandoned Vessel]
There was no other explanation. I tried checking my yacht, looking up and around, but there was nothing. Shrugging, I moved on to the ships. It was like one big junkyard—but for ships. Many had drifted off, but most were still within sight of one another.
The fishing boats were mostly empty. Yachts, though a pain to break into, had cabinets full of jerry cans–which were full of marine diesel–canned food, and water. Even more jerry cans were stashed under seats and in storage compartments.
I could have lugged them all back to my yacht by hand, but I had an inventory now.
After some experimentation, I realized that as long as I could lift it, it went in. There didn’t seem to be any space limitation, just an organization limit. Unlike my weapons and arrows, which appeared in a separate category, and which could be instinctually felt, I had to scroll to find these. If I put too many things in, I would have to scroll forever to find what I needed.
You’d best believe I put everything in my inventory.
Fishing rods? Check. Life jackets? Check. Coolers? Sure, even the ones that had the title “cooler filled with dirty water.” Anchors? Navigation charts? Deck chairs? Fishing nets? Sunscreen? Old boots? Binoculars? Portable grills? Seashell collections?
I took everything. Nothing stacked; everything had a different durability.
By the time I was done almost two hours later, with my modest 0.5 points of mana regen per hour, I had one more mana. I made another arrow and stored it in my inventory. Then I went back to coasting along the shoreline, seeing if there was anyone I could help.
It was bad.
There were no humans—just a trail of destruction.
I blasted the yacht’s horn. If something could get the mana golems to come to me and away from other survivors In areas I couldn’t see, that would it.
It did. But not in a place I expected.
Out of one of the buildings, maybe a restaurant or a bar not long ago, a group of them busted through the walls. I loosed all the arrows I had created, then drifted farther away, dropped anchor, and chilled.
What else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t use my phone, couldn’t go on land, couldn’t save anyone—everyone was gone or dead.
It was me and the sea. Not so bad, even if the hours of calm waves, cool breeze, and warm sun rebelled against my nature. I wanted to do something. Run. Jog. Do homework. Play piano. Ruffle my sister’s Shiba Inu. Tease my sister.
Yes, the dog came before my sister.
I wanted to do everything, occupying every second of every day. Just go, go! All gas, no breaks.
I did the opposite. I went below deck into the cabin and meditated. I could have done it on the deck, but I didn’t want to get sunburned—it had been hours since I last applied sunscreen. I left the hatch and portlights open–small rectangular windows–letting the cool breeze in.
It was calming. Just me and nothing. Not the tickling on my ear or the mosquito bite on my leg. Not the anxiety or excitement from today. Not the expectation of cellular data returning or someone calling me. Not the blaring of alarms for my dad’s assigned schedule. I’d already turned those off.
I cracked open the fridge.
A blast of cold air hit me. I really hoped it wouldn’t break down; I’d stuffed it full of perishables.
I had loaded tacos and two tubs of ice cream. After eating, I went to the railings, leaned over, and rinsed my hands. The water was freezing cold.
I was going to try to avoid using any water on the yacht, aside from the toilet water, which used seawater. But the faucets?
Not if my life depended on it. I wanted to make the water last for as long as possible for showers, and at worst, as drinking water.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d be stuck out here.
After another quick meditative session, I went to bed.
Morning saw another few tacos and tubs of ice cream consumed. Unfortunately, the ice cream I had tried storing in my inventory melted, becoming a sad puddle.
I still drank it all, mixing it with milk for a milkshake. During this, I tried figuring out what hidden skills I had and which ones I should use. I eventually narrowed down what I wanted.