- Allows you to receive advanced item information, including their composition, production history and approximate monetary evaluation
- Allows you to receive advanced information about other people and living beings, including their main characteristics and primary skills
- When interacting with others, allows you to see their Mood and Interest levels
- Provides information on any available skills which are currently blocked
- Marks the location of people and other living beings on your map, provided your knowledge of them is equal or exceeds 5 KIDD points.
- Displays your heart rate, current date and time and a mini map
I temporarily zoned out, not knowing where to begin. I must have dropped a meatball from my fork, judging by the scuffle that ensued (which Richie predictably won). I was even oblivious of Boris’ sneaky paw reaching for my plate. My subconscious must have duly registered my pets’ insolent behavior but my brain was in overdrive.
I summoned Martha, hoping to receive an explanation of the mysterious KIDD points.
Martha leaned her lithe back on the wall pressing the sole of the foot against it. Exactly what I didn’t need with my newly-acquired debuff. My body reacted to her presence without my consent.
“Martha, could you please change your avatar?”
“Request denied. Insufficient resource.”
“Could you at least change into something more presentable?”
She immediately “changed” into a skimpy evening dress. Oh, great. This was getting worse.
“Never mind,” I said. “Mind telling me what KIDD is?”
“KIDD is Key ID Data. One KIDD point contains one key property of an object which allows for its repeated successful identification.”
“Could you give me an example, please?”
“For human beings, it can be a close-up photograph of a person’s face, their full name or date of birth, their place of birth, place of current employment or any such information about their family members, among other things.”
“How can knowing someone’s place of birth help you to find them?”
Martha shook her head in silent amazement. “Phil, Phil. Compare the planet’s entire population to that of even its biggest city.”
“Okay, I got it. Now please get lost. I’m not in a good way. That wretched debuff!”
“Request accepted. Allow me to bring to your attention that you are recommended to enter into a sexual inter-”
“Piss off!”
She disappeared. I opened the skill tab, scrolled it all the way to the end and focused on the yet-inactive Optimization.
AFTER A SHORT WHILE, I walked out onto the balcony and looked up, gazing at the stars.
Today had just turned out to be the best day of my life.
In any known RPG, Optimization would be a perfectly legit skill. Well, almost.
But in real life... goodness me, this was a cheat to end all cheats! If you put it in a book, no one would believe such a Deus-ex-freakin-machina! But there I was, having it courtesy of the mysterious game system.
Optimization I
- Allows you to select primary and secondary skills.
The development of primary skills will take 50% less time than average. The development of secondary skills will take 50% longer than average.
- Allows you to convert secondary skill points to primary ones at a rate of 2 to 1, with the consequent deletion of the secondary skill.
Cooldown: 30 days
Warning! In order to activate the skill, an undisturbed 12-hour period of sleep is required. Please ensure your location is safe. You are recommended to adopt a prone position.
I desperately needed a skill point.
And to get it, I had to keep leveling.
Chapter Fourteen. The Dog Eat Dog World
“Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties.”
Doug Larson
“THERE YOU GO,” a pretty gym receptionist handed me a towel and a magnetic locker key on a bracelet. “Your personal coach is Alexander over there. Once you’ve changed, you need to go and speak to him. Enjoy your workout!”
“Thanks,” I replied, suppressing a big yawn.
I’d gotten up before 5 a.m. Waking up hadn’t been such a problem thanks to my smart internal alarm clock. Still, I couldn’t fool my own body. I simply hadn’t had enough sleep. At least I hadn’t received the Lack of Sleep debuff this time. No matter how hard I’d tried to force myself asleep, I’d tossed and turned through the best part of the night deciding on what I should do next.
Two things that were virtually guaranteed to satisfy most of one’s needs were money and power. Also, money could lead to power just as power could lead to money. Which meant that acquiring one of the two was probably enough to get the other — plus all the perks one could think of.
Would you like to make this world a better place? In this case, you should invest in science and medicine, help the poor and support non-profits. Or would you rather indulge in the most unthinkable debauchery? In which case, you were more than welcome to an unlimited list of pleasures delivered directly to your Presidential Suite. And if it was vanity you were after, why not buy a top soccer club, pack it chock full of stars and enjoy the world’s standing ovations and TV appearances?
You could make your childhood dreams come true by becoming a space tourist or investing in space exploration; you could enjoy the privacy of a tropical island complete with white beaches and picturesque vistas; you could finance and lead a revolution in some remote banana republic; or you could shoot a blockbuster movie about dinosaurs and beautiful androids in skimpy bikinis... you could do lots of things. Your imagination and the size of your wallet were the limits.
As for power, that was something I’d never been interested in. But money... money didn’t earn itself. I had less than a year left until my paid membership ran out. I’d have to make the most of this time.
This was the proverbial crossroads. I was thirty-two with nothing to show for it. What was normal for my peers — a stable income, a family, a place of their own, decent cars and frequent overseas vacations — was still out of reach for me. So whatever decision I made now would gradually, over months, take me further away from any alternative routes.
What should I invest my time and effort in? Should I pursue my writing career? Or become an advertising expert? Persevere with sales or start my own business while I gained enough experience?
This kind of choice was still academic — I was too busy trying to survive for the time being. But my other goal, to bring my main characteristics up to average, was pretty obvious. Whatever I decided to do, I couldn’t afford to be worse than the average Joe — not when I had this premium augmented-reality account to help me.
This was my chance. If I used it right, then by the end of the year I’d be able to live a new life unassisted by the interface. I’d be strong, agile, intelligent, charismatic and lucky enough.
I really should have invested into Intellect, Luck or Perception. Had I known that these characteristics were more than just numbers! It looked like they really could affect your life with every level you gained. Crazy, I know, but would I have really become smarter had I invested in Intellect? How about Luck — would I have started making better decisions? I also had a funny feeling that an improved Perception might have restructured my vision.
Naturally, I had to concentrate on important stats, clearing my head from all the worthless extras. Optimization had a month’s cooldown, after all. According to Martha, this wasn’t just some arbitrary limitation. Apparently, the human brain couldn’t be rebuilt overnight. The artificial rerouting of neural paths was a time-consuming and highly delicate procedure, especially if the skill required introducing new data to the brain.
I’d already made up my mind to get rid of my WoW skills. That would give me 4 extra points for level 1 of some other skill. But what was going to happen if I did that? Would I
forget that the game even existed? Would I still be able to remember my guild and the names of my clan members?
According to Martha, I’d be able to remember all of it, only that the memory would become weak and blurred as if it were something that had happened decades ago. A bit like I remembered my childhood games in my grandparents’ village. We had this game of throwing pocket knives at targets. I could vaguely recall us drawing some circles on the ground and dividing them into sectors depending on the number of players... but that was the extent of it. I couldn’t remember the rules nor the faces of my playmates. I didn’t even know anymore if I’d been any good at it. The knife we’d used — had it been a pocket or a kitchen knife? Had its handle been made of wood or held together with a length of tape? I just didn’t remember...
I still didn’t know how many skills I could select as primary for use with Optimization. Were there any restrictions? And which ones should I really level?
Unfortunately, system skills such as Insight could only be leveled up through repeated use. So if I thought strategically — not just about this year but about my life as a whole — I really had to improve Learning Skills which gave 10% to Learning Rate with its first level gained.
In this light, making the next social status level was becoming a priority. I needed this skill point in order to activate Optimization. Then by the time the license ran out, I would have converted ten or eleven worthless skills into something useful.
Leveling social status was also important for another reason. Even though I still didn’t understand what exactly I gained from it, I now knew that each level gained gave me an extra system point to invest into characteristics and skills.
Now that I could finally see all the stat bars, my progress had ceased to be guesswork. Each new level required 1000 XP more than the one before it. Skill bars were calibrated in percent.
Currently, I was level 6. In order to make level 7, I had to amass 7,000 XP. At the moment, the XP bar was filled a little more than a half.
Current level: 6
XP gained: 3760/7000
Interestingly, I’d earned most of that XP last night — by leveling Charisma, Insight and Cooking, and by having helped Alik out. I already knew that I received no XP for any system leveling of my stats — but I did receive 1 pt. for each Reputation point as well as for each point earned for completing self-assigned tasks.
True, you couldn’t earn much XP by setting your own tasks. The game could read my mind, so it knew which things were hard for me to do and which ones were easy peasy. At first, I’d had this idea of making a to-do list of a hundred entries for the next morning: get out of bed, walk into the bathroom, open the tap... yeah right. It hadn’t worked, had it? The tasks hadn’t even added to my 2do log.
I’d love to know how Mr Panikoff, my old-age pensioner, had managed to level his social status to level 27? That was over 300,000 XP! Hadn’t he said he used to be a university lecturer? Could it have been all the Respect his students had for him? That could explain it. That way he could have earned one level a year easily, even without any boosters.
I could only imagine the numbers achieved by medical workers. Having said that, some so-called doctors could be mere quacks who didn’t give a damn about their negative karma as long as they could line their pockets.
I smiled, remembering Olga, the cute shrink from the clinic. Should I visit her again, maybe?
I toyed with the idea for a bit until I realized it must have been my wretched sexual debuff putting thoughts into my head. No, I’d better give this one a miss.
I was curious to check out celebrities’ levels, just to see if their fame affected their real Reputation. Questions, questions... The more answers I discovered, the more new questions I had.
Then there was money, of course. I had to become my own boss. I could already see that this new job in Ultrapak wasn’t going to pay millions even if I owned the company itself which I didn’t. I was a humble sales rep on a trial period. And in order to come up with any moneymaking ideas, I might need to experiment. I had to find out which KIDD points counted and which didn’t.
I equipped my brand-new workout gear and walked out of the locker room. Considering this was still early morning, the place was heaving. I had no idea we had so many health freaks in our country.
My debuff-ridden gaze seemed to gravitate to all the shapely gym babes. In a way, this was actually motivational, encouraging me to lose weight, gain muscle and improve stamina. All of that might considerably improve my standing with the fairer sex.
I spent the next hour working out with my coach Alexander (age: 28, married, social level 9). He asked me about my objectives (strength and stamina) and began trying me on all sorts of machines. We started with a warmup on a treadmill, followed by sit-ups, bench presses, cable rows, hyperextensions and a few other exercises, all of them with the minimum weight.
“First we need to teach you technique,” he explained. “It might take us a couple of weeks. We’ll be doing it nice and slow, gradually adding more weights.”
As I worked out, I received several system warnings about my heart rate exceeding safe parameters. I was so out of shape my heart was pounding after every set — but I had to start a new one before I even had a chance to catch my breath.
I walked back to the locker room on rubbery legs, soaked in sweat. My towel was dripping wet.
Much to my surprise, my Strength numbers hadn’t changed. It was still level 7, the progress bar frozen at 18% (I’d checked it on purpose before I’d started working out).
Alexander’s last words seemed to shed some light on this mystery. “At the moment, it’s better that you take a full day’s rest between sessions,” he said as he parted with me, with a suggestion I had a protein shake. “Muscle tissue requires a 48-hour recovery period in order to enter the supercompensation stage.”
The effects of his training session manifested themselves in a totally different way. Once I got out of the shower, I received a message informing me of my increased Metabolism, Satisfaction and Vigor. My Mood, Spirit, Willpower and Confidence had also received a bit of a nudge. I couldn’t complain, really. Benefit was apparent.
Seeing as my Happiness buff was about to expire, I went to the gym bar and had a delicious chocolate protein shake. Was this how people became addicted to exercise?
* * *
AS SOON AS I walked into the Ultrapak office, I noticed a few familiar faces. Both Marina and Greg “Bullshit Artist” Boyko were there too — the guys I’d met at the job interview three days previously.
Only three days! So many things had happened since — mainly in my head, though — that it felt like an eternity.
We hung in the sales department, not knowing what to do with ourselves. There was nowhere to sit down, anyway. All six of us — myself, Greg, Marina and three other guys of various ages — stood in a tight group by the water cooler.
No one seemed to be paying any attention to us. Either they viewed us as competition or they’d already seen loads of hopeless wannabes like ourselves.
We spent a quarter of an hour shooting the breeze and listening to Greg’s half-baked stories. Today he’d arrived dressed all in white. He admitted he hadn’t had the guts to quit his old job. He’d just taken some time off without pay.
Finally the door opened, letting in the company’s commercial director: a grim man of about thirty. I remembered him: he’d been present at my earlier interview.
He walked through the room, dishing out orders left and right while talking on his phone and drinking coffee. He motioned us to follow him.
We trotted in his wake through a maze of office corridors until finally we came to the conference room with a projector mounted on a large oval table. Still busy arguing with someone on his phone, he motioned us to sit down.
I checked his profile. Pavel Gorelov, 31 years old, corporate leader, a level-11 vendor. Married with three kids. Social status level: 18.
I remembered what Martha had earlier
said about having children: apparently, children were considered society’s future so raising them could positively affect one’s social status too.
I checked his primary skills and main characteristics. Predictably, he had high levels of Sales Skills, Leadership — and Boxing, of all things. Oh wow. Strength: 15, Agility: 14, Charisma: 16... this was one hell of a dude!
And I was a year his senior...
The moment I thought this, I received a debuff message,
A Pang of Envy
You’re experiencing jealousy of another person’s success.
-5% to Confidence
-5% to Satisfaction
-10% to Self-Control
+5% to Willpower
There you go, Phil. You’re a jealous bastard, aren’t you?
Admittedly, I had every reason to be. My future boss cut a fine figure with his crewcut, his fit body, his expensive suit and megawatt smile. He projected confidence an wellbeing.
We took our seats, waiting for him to finish his conversation. Finally, he switched the phone off. Without sitting down, he leaned both hands against the back of a chair.
“Morning, everyone. We’ve met already. Still, for those who might have forgotten me, my name’s Pavel and I’m the sales director here at Ultrapak. I can see there’re six of you here even though I specifically told the HR that I only needed five people. One of you will be going home now. By the end of next week, there’ll be only three of you left. And by the end of your trial period, only one person will join us as a new sales manager. If you’re not sure you can do it, I suggest you don’t waste my time — or your own. You’d better leave now.”
His searching gaze lingered upon each of us as he studied our reactions. No volunteers.
Restart (Level Up Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 16
