Chapter 2: My Daughter Likes Kpop.
I think this should be about right, though I spent a bit more time than I wish I would've, this seems quite a promising system!
Sure, it might be a bit uh… empty, but there was some promise! If you killed things you could level up, which would increase your stats, which would in turn make you stronger, though the higher the level the harder to level up because most monsters wouldn't give enough exp.
The system also skimmed most of the exp from every kill a player gets…
…
MONSTERS?! WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING, what monsters? There are no monsters on earth! get your shit straight, Joshua!
Sigh
What do I do now?... how do I make people stronger?
I could make them exercise, that's not directly improving their stats… but in theory once they reach a certain threshold there should be a change in their stats, which should maybe make it more fun? maybe?
I have always personally felt that there is something innately satisfying in watching numbers grow as a result of your efforts, hell, just watching efforts turn into something easily observable should be a great incentive, which means that people's suffering hasn't been in vain. That's kind of the same logic that applies if you notice muscles growing after exercising for some time, it should push you harder, no? at least most RPGs should work that way, obviously mixing in a cool story and some other stuff.
I could make daily missions?... hmm… all this should be science, meaning that the system should follow the law of conservation of energy, or well… physics in general.
Energy isn't created or destroyed, only transformed so perhaps making an ability that turns energy into Mana and that in turn into EXP… that'd make it much harder to move and exercise, kinda like halving the energy in the body but in exchange it'd give you EXP after each exercising mission… and if people don't finish the mission the EXP could come to me to turn into EP to change the system?
"System, define the energy produced by the body as "Energy Points", the energy stol... ehem, I mean, taken by the exercising mission should be defined in EP, also make it so 1 EP is equal to 10 EXP, also, what's the conversion rate between the energy types I've registered so far?"
Processing...
1 EP = 10 exp
1 MP = 10 exp
1 SP = 10 mp
1 SP = 100 EXP
So if I have 1 SP I can give the equivalent of 100 EXP as rewards while issuing missions, or turn it into Mana if I want to do something… perhaps I should make that into a skill… I don't want people burning their Exp and lowering their levels though… I suppose I'll make it interchangeable only by me. That should be fine I suppose…
Fine I'll go with the daily exercise missions, *sigh* WHY IS THIS SO MUCH WORK!?
Should I make a shop to buy skills? no, that would be a bit too easy… not that there are any skills that people would have and or want right now… how am I even going to come up with all the skills all by myself!?
... I'll make an empty shop for now that I'll use to exchange energy types, though I should be the only one with the energy exchange option, even when I make the shop public.
"System, make a window called "shop" and make it only accessible by me for now, also put the option to exchange energy types in it."
** Confirmed **
Do I have to do it all by myself, though? What if users can suggest skills using their own knowledge to make it into a skill… that's brilliant!
"System, can I give users whatever benefits I want?"
...
** The Head administrator may assign privileges to certain individuals, depending on the scale and energy of the system. At the moment, there isn't enough energy to assign a privileged individual user. Do your best for humanity's sake. **
Useful, as always…
So basically, yes but not just yet, don't be too lazy, is that what you want to say to me?... I mean, I suppose I am a bit lazy, I will try to work on that, why do I feel like I'm being bullied…
After a bit of sulking from Joshua's part, he gathered himself together and thought about what else was he lacking.
Monsters, I definitely need monsters, I can probably create them, but how do I get them to not hurt anyone… I mean, they're monsters! they SHOULD hurt people, but I'm not sure if I'd be alright with that.
Plants? maybe monster plants? they should in theory stay rooted to the ground… I could even make a system for monsters and have them get some Exp for me! Though I'd have to put them somewhere where humans don't reach too often.
I could also make dungeons, perhaps, and have the monsters confined to them… I remember that some game's backstories said that you had to attack dungeons or monsters would come out sooner or later, but that sounds bloody.
But I suppose that I'm doing all of this just so fewer people die when, whatever the threat is, comes for us… survival of the fittest, right? Still, it makes me feel some kind of way… and it isn't pretty
Joshua contemplated for a while, was it worth it to do all of this if in the end other people still got hurt? Joshua had never been a pacifist, he knew how the world worked, people starved every day, mugged and killed, some even suffered fates worse than death.
He had seen blood once upon a time, animals, he remembered... his heartbeat accelerating, pumping and pumping for his mind to keep wondering as it was at the time.
He was quite the curious one at that age... a little too much.
Joshua felt a certain emotion lowly stir inside his chest, an emotion, he had already decided that he didn't like.
He didn't want to think about that anymore, he promised he wouldn't and it was a long time ago, and he was just a kid, and didn't know any better.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he gathered himself again, he needed to finish this.
I'll first do some experiments on plants, and I'll keep them in my balcony, there should be no problem with that, and that way nobody gets hurt early, my first goal will be to make a low level monster and use it as humanity's first contact with the system, I'll try to make sure to introduce it slowly so as to not cause panic.
Let's first add a skill to empower plants depending on the Mana I can use, that should be fairly easy as I only need the Mana.
It'll be called "Plant manipulation"!
IM DONE! get me out of here!
...
** System has been deemed acceptable by the main server **
** Restarting Mind-Body connection **
** Implementing physiological changes required by introduced skills **
A pale looking young man with dark brown hair and dark bags under his green eyes laid in a hospital bed, without a person to care for him, this was Joshua, and it was nothing new for him to be alone, he was quite used to it by now since his parents died when he was about 15.
However, were there a person in the room they would've noticed a few weird things, first of all, the young looking man spasmed for a few moments, which someone else would've taken as an epilepsy attack, which would've shocked many people, as these were known for being quite, quite bad, yes, the understatement of the year, we know, we know.
The second reason was that besides the young man doing what other people would equate to a bug dancing after it's been squashed, was the fact that the air around the young man started fluctuating with a few dim lights appearing and disappearing around him, with a crackling being faintly heard in the room in which he dwelled.
Joshua felt as if electricity was passing through his body, like all his muscles in his body tensed at once, which might sound strange but harmless in the end… not really, it was painful, just think about it, the muscles from your jaw, neck arms torso, legs, feet along with both no-zones, the front and the back, contracting forcefully at once.
And then it stopped, thank god it stopped.
It was quite an unpleasant experience, one which Joshua was not very keen on remembering at all, but as good news, when he recovered, he noticed he was all by himself in a hospital room, which in turn meant that nobody saw him spasm uncontrollably for a moment there, which was all the better to him.
He didn't want a doctor to keep him for observation or whatever they did when they saw something wrong with a patient.
Joshua looked around and the memories of his stay in the white space came back to him slowly, like waves coming to the beach, they flowed one after another to him almost rhythmically, and when they came back to him the first thing he did was to try and say in a low voice.
"Status"
Status
-----
Name: Joshua Drummings
Age: 18 Years
Class: Head administrator
Lvl: 1
EXP: 0
MP: 0.01 / 1
SP: 0
Stats
-----
Reflexes: 10
Stamina: 7
Strength: 4
Intelligence: 11
Skills
-----
Fast writing Lvl 1
Mana usage Lvl 1
Plant manipulation Lvl 1
There it was, it wasn't just a dream, the system was real!
...
Cool I guess...
Joshua would've normally freaked out but, to be honest, he did a lot of that inside the white space, so he left any further panicking or whatever for when he was home and not in danger of being taken to a government research facility or worse, a bloody f*cking internship.
Joshua didn't know much, but he heard that those who went through an internship came out changed somehow.
Not quite themselves.
Yeah, no, no thanks
Joshua had a beautiful red snake to go back to. And judging by the sky outside the window and date on his phone, it was about time to feed her.
So, after arguing with a fussy doctor that didn't seem to want to let him go, he finally managed to convince him and left the hospital at around 2 pm.
Here I come, Joraane!
____________________________
(Dr. Alexander Rodriguez POV)
A young man by the name of Joshua came last night at around 8:50 PM, his coworker, called an ambulance seeing as he seemed to fall from the stairs in front of their workplace, a place called "Luigi's".
The young woman which called the ambulance seemed to be an acquaintance of him, and said that once she discovered him she had noticed that the young Joshua had already lost consciousness, however the weird thing is that he hit his head quite hard, which indicates that he hadn't extended his hands in order to stop the fall, which is something most would've done as a reflex.
The fact that he didn't indicates that either he's the slowest unluckiest and dumbest person Alexander had ever seen, or that he had lost consciousness before hitting the ground, which could be because of exhaustion, however the young woman told the people from the ambulance that he had seemed okay before leaving.
Now, to be quite honest, Alexander didn't really give a shit, no parents had come, and young Joshua's emergency contact, his aunt said that Joshua would probably not want her there once he awoke, so Alexander didn't really have to explain to anyone what exactly happened to this young man.
Naturally, he wouldn't have thought much of it were it not for one simple detail, one that none of the nurses had noticed.
Joshua Drummings.
How the f*ck did the nurses not notice? How do they live in California and not know the name, are they daft?!
Not Joshua Drums or Joshua Runnings
He was from THOSE Drummings.
And as one of THOSE Drummings, he couldn't die, the government WOULDN'T allow it to happen, and if he did die, an internship would be a merciful punishment.
And said and done, this morning some guy with shades and in a suit had come to ask around about what had happened to Joshua.
Do you think somebody pushed him? is the injury bad? do you believe there is an issue with young Joshua's health besides the injury?
Yeah, after that short meeting which ended in a "we'll be in contact", Alexander was scared shitless, so he played the good doctor that didn't dare slack at all and was quite careful.
The night before Joshua had run a fever, a bad one, but locally he seemed to wake up feeling better… or at least he looked better, not that it meant much, since the kid was (pardon my French) pale as f*ck.
But he woke up, the fever didn't mess him up like a nurse thought it would, and he didn't seem to have brain injuries from the fall.
Thank f*cking god.
Though he did notice that once he came in the morning, the room smelled weird-ish, kinda like ozone. Which, sure, is weird, but this guy is a pizza guy even though he most likely could buy Suerte city outright, so who knows what these rich f*cking dude is thinking, might be that he hasn't taken a bath in a while or something… who knows.
I wanted him to keep him one or two days more for observation but the guy sort of, kind of, bullied me into letting him go… well not really, but he's a bloody DRUMMINGS! I can't just keep arguing with him, I don't want to be assassinated just yet!
I'm thinking I'll take a vacation, once I report to that guy with the suit and shades that the boy's okay.
they say Korea is beautiful, might as well check that out, and my daughter likes those K-pop dudes.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Jupiteresse
Jupiteresse some info on joshua's family.
to be honest i just sort of came up with the whole doctor pov last moment since without it the chapter felt a little short.
what do you guys think?
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