by Pegaz
The Idle System
Pegaz
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Idle System
Chapter 2: The Escape
Chapter 3: The Meet
Chapter 4: The System’s a Thief!
Chapter 5: The New Skill
Chapter 6: The Idle Organs
Chapter 7: Silently Getting Stronger
Chapter 8: The System’s Surprise
Chapter 9: After a Month
Chapter 10: The End of the Holiday
Chapter 11: Strength Test
Chapter 12: The Manual Part
Chapter 13: The Desperation
Chapter 14: Healing the Wounds
Chapter 15: Start with the Basics
Chapter 16: Master of the Basics
Chapter 17: Truth
Chapter 18: I Bought This for Show?
Chapter 19: Preparation
Chapter 20: Let the Massacre Begin
Chapter 21: The Shocked Town
Chapter 22: Shopping
Chapter 23: The Con
Chapter 24: Halfway There
Chapter 25: Have I Passed?
Chapter 26: I Need a Bag
Chapter 27: The Most Expensive Gloves Ever Made
Chapter 28: Reward
Chapter 29: B Rank Hunt
Chapter 30: Surprise Gift
Chapter 31: The Overzealous Assassin
Chapter 32: Going Back
Chapter 33: Life Power
Chapter 34: Him Again
Chapter 35: The Order
Chapter 36: Attacking Bandits
Chapter 37: Prison
Chapter 38: Perfect Timing
Chapter 39: *Spoiler*
Chapter 40: 8th Senses Skill
Chapter 41: Only A Rank
Chapter 42: King
Chapter 43: S Rank
Chapter 44: Another King?
Chapter 45: *Spoiler*
Chapter 46: Setting up
Chapter 47: Trouble
Chapter 48: *Spoiler*
Chapter 49: 2 Years on
Chapter 50: Legend
Copyright & Disclaimer
Copyright © 2018. All rights reserved.
No portion of this book or its art may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by UK copyright law.
For permission contact: [email protected]
This work is registered with the UK Copyright Service: Registration No: 284722669
Cover done by Rebeca Covers
Editing done by Kaden Kroll
Proofread by natsuriayuko
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination of used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1
The Idle System
Regardless of the platform you play on, running idle games can be quite fun. Whether it’s on a desktop or mobile device, for the patient and wealthy, there are many rewards to reap.
John was a thirty-eight-year-old man, just your typical and ordinary guy. He worked as a forklift driver, he read books—and in his leisure time, he played computer games. With no family and only a few friends, he bided his time running idle games at his computer.
A couple clicks here, a few more there; his typical routine involved running the game before work and then progressing in the story when he returned home. It was the perfect distraction to keep him from thinking too much.
On this particular morning, John left his house for work as per his daily routine. However, as he started to walk, he began to feel a slight tingle in his arm. Thinking nothing of it, he shook his arm around a bit and continued on to his car. He inserted his keys into the door, when…
BANG!
A tightness clamped around his chest. John stumbled, struck by a sudden dizziness. His breath drew short and sweat beaded up on his brow. Overwhelmed, he tumbled backwards onto the concrete, hitting his head.
In that moment, all he could think about was how his past deeds would merit him a one-way ticket to Hell—despite him being an atheist. And as his panicked thoughts clouded up, one question stood out among the rest.
Is this the end?
John blacked out.
∞
Eyelids slowly flickered open. John drudged back into consciousness, his brain still a bit hazy. He pictured himself in a hospital bed, with a cute nurse waiting for him to wake up. Still only half awake, he couldn't help but smile.
This smile quickly faded, however, when reality hit him. He was face down on the top of a cliff, head hanging over the edge. Looking down, John could see nothing but the tops of trees. He could even hear a loud buzzing sound a small distance away.
Brain snapping back to full consciousness, John instantly fell into a panic and crawled backwards as fast as he could, his breath catching short as he tried to calm himself down.
Chest heaving with slow and deep breaths, John took in his surroundings. He was by the edge of a river, one that turned into a waterfall over the cliff he woke up at. To his left were a few boulders, nothing too interesting. There was a cave entrance behind him, hidden away in a mountain. Eyes following the mountain upwards, the top was obscured by the clouds.
John stood up and decided to approach the cave entrance. As he got closer, he saw the opening was only about two or three feet high and five feet wide. He crouched down onto his knees and tried to look inside, only to be met with darkness.
A small grey box caught his attention against the otherwise pitch black surroundings. It hovered at the upper right corner of his vision and didn’t seem like a tangible object. John shook his head. Curiously, the box followed him as he left.
Releasing a sigh, John returned to the riverbank where he could lay down and contemplate. He cupped his hands and scooped up some water, careful to avoid the pull of the current. After a few long drinks, he sat back up and examined the grey box, which still hovered at the edge of his vision.
The box was just that: a box. At the centre of it was a character that resembled the letter ‘i’, but besides that it had no significant characteristics. Thinking it was linked to his brain somehow, John tried willing it open but to no avail. He tried magic words, passwords… nothing worked.
Giving up, John laid his head back on the ground. After a while, it occurred to him that he still had no idea how he got there. The last thing he remembered was being in pain. A heart attack, perhaps?
His brain could not make sense of this. From wishing to see cute nurses to exploring and then to investigating a weird box… He completely skipped over the part where he was supposed to worry about where he was and how he got here.
In the midst of being stunned by his own trace of thought, the grey box at the corner of his vision suddenly expanded. It resembled an icon that grew bigger and bigger, until it completely obscured the right side of his vision. Letters appeared, turning into words, as if someone was typing.
Loading…
Welcome to the Idle System 1.0
Name: John
Age: 15
Idlers: 1/1
HP: 10
Attack: N/A
Defence: N/A
Stamina: N/A
After he read the words that appeared, the system seemed to shrink, only for another pop-up to replace it. At the top of this new window, the title read ‘Introduction’ in a large font.
Even though it was somehow far-fetched, John had an inkling of what happened to him. He let out a shaky sigh of relief.
At least, I wasn’t thrown in the deep end to sink or swim on my own...
After the title, he looked down to read the text below the int
roduction.
Each Idler takes one second off the timing needed to complete a level.
For example, if Level 1 of Palm Toughness’ power level takes 3,600 seconds (60 minutes) to complete, then placing 1 Idler will take 3,600 seconds to complete. 2 Idlers will take 1,800 (30 minutes) seconds to complete, and 3 Idlers will take 1,200 (20 minutes) seconds to complete.
As the levels progress, the time needed to complete the next level is longer.
Depending on skill, level, and how many Idlers you have assigned to an area, the time it takes to complete a level can vary from a few seconds to a few days, months, or even years.
After reading the short message in the Introduction, the text window closed immediately. A new one reading ‘The Idle System’ replaced it. Along the top of the display, John saw another message.
Welcome to the Idle System 1.0.
To open the system, think ‘open’. To close the system, think ‘close’.
Deciding to check the basics, John looked over his current skill list.
Attack List:
Palm Toughness - Idlers 0/99, Power Level - 0/100, Speed - 0/100, Ignore Defence - 0/100
Knuckle Damage - Idlers 0/99, Power Level - 0/100, Speed - 0/100, Ignore Defence - 0/100
Elbow Damage - Idlers 0/99, Power Level - 0/100, Speed - 0/100, Ignore Defence - 0/100
Knee Damage - Idlers 0/99, Power Level - 0/100, Speed - 0/100, Ignore Defence - 0/100
Feet Damage - Idlers 0/99, Power Level - 0/100, Speed - 0/100, Ignore Defence - 0/100
“So the attack list has five skills…” John muttered in observation. He took note that each of the skills maxed out at Level 100. From the looks of it, this system was more about bodybuilding than using weapons.
Skimming through the lists, he knew the best thing to do at the start was to either increase the Max Idlers or the Idler Speed. In the long run, this would allow him to get more skills in a shorter time frame, as opposed to getting something big that would only last in the short term.
With this strategy in mind, he eyed the Maximum Workers skill, brain already in work mode.
Put an Idler there…
Immediately, the 0/99 changed to 1/99 and a timer appeared at the end of the row. He scanned through all the skills in the “Misc” list while the clock ran down.
Misc List:
Idlers Speed - Idlers 0/99, -1 Second Per Idler - 0/9
Maximum Idlers - Idlers 1/99, +1 Max Idlers - 0/2159, Time - 30s
Maximum Workers - Idlers 0/99, +1 Idler Workers - 0/2061
Analyser Eye - Idlers 0/99, Basic - 0/1, Advanced - 0/1, Godly - 0/1
??? - Idlers 0/99, ??? - 0/1 (unlocks after Stomach Acid 1)
??? - Idlers 0/99, ??? - 0/1, ??? - 0/1 (unlocks after Thinking Speed 50)
??? - Idlers 0/99, ??? - 0/1, ??? - 0/1 (unlocks after Senses 8)
Spotting the ‘30s’, John figured the ‘s’ must mean seconds in time. Going along with this, he assumed it was the same as the games he played at home. Minutes would be ‘m’, hours would be ‘h’, and god forbid, John didn’t want to even think of what ‘y’ would stand for.
While his current Idler worked, he glanced at the top of the display. The Idlers changed from 1/1 to 0/1. John concluded that his current maximum amount of Idlers was 1. He currently had no more Idlers free to put anywhere else.
Thirty seconds passed and he heard a ‘ding!’ sound, something like a small bell being struck lightly. His attention was redirected to the top of the display again. It now read ‘Idlers: 2/2’. He put them both back into the ‘Maximum Idlers’ category.
So, after each level is complete, it doesn’t carry onto the next level. Instead, it just removes the Idlers, which means that each level you have to redo it, John mused over the workings of the game with a frown. If you’re busy when it finishes, you’re going to waste time. What a pain...
Complaints aside, the man glanced at the display once more. The list now read something different.
Maximum Idlers - Idlers 2/99, +1 Max Idlers - 1/2159, Time - 90s
While waiting for the remaining ninety seconds to finish, John skimmed over the Defence list’s skills.
Defence List:
Flesh Strength - Idlers 0/99, Regeneration - 0/100
Organ Strength - Idlers 0/99, Regeneration - 0/100, Lung Capacity - 0/100, Stomach Acid - 0/1
Blood Capacity - Idlers 0/99, Cell Speed - 0/100, Transportation - 0/10, White Cells - 0/10
Bone Density - Idlers 0/99, Toughness - 0/100, Marrow - 0/100, Cell Production 0/10
Muscle Elasticity - Idlers 0/99, Cardiac - 0/100, Skeletal - 0/100, Smooth - 0/100
Mind Strength - Idlers 0/99, Thinking Speed - 0/100, Memory - 0/2, Senses - 0/10
Elbow Joint - Idlers 0/99, Friction - 0/100, Toughness - 0/100
Knee Joint - Idlers 0/99, Friction - 0/100, Toughness - 0/100
Shoulder Joint - Idlers 0/99, Friction - 0/100, Toughness - 0/100
Ankle Joint - Idlers 0/99, Friction - 0/100, Toughness - 0/100
There’s a lot more here than on the Attack and Misc lists. More than likely, these are going to be the primary skills.
John glanced over at the remaining time and did some quick mental math.
So, the first level was 30 seconds with one Idler—that’s easy enough to calculate. But Level 2 takes 90 seconds with two Idlers, each Idler taking 1 second off of each. That means the actual completion time was 180 seconds, three times longer than Level 1.
If it continues like this, Level 3 will take… err… 540 seconds to finish. And if I put all three Idlers in, it’ll take… 180 seconds.
John took a quick look back at the remaining time on the clock. There were 10 seconds left. He watched the clock countdown and saw, to his shock, that 10 seconds dropped to 8 seconds. He instantly put two and two together, realising that the total time was ninety seconds because each Idler knocked off one second each. His mind went blank for a moment as this sunk in.
I’m an idiot.
Chapter 2
The Escape
John heard the ‘ding!’ notification again, and his eyes darted back to the top of the system's screen. It now read ‘Idlers: 3/3’.
Checking over the skill indicators, John confirmed that it was already at 0/99, with the level indicator reading Level 2/2159. Without wasting any time, John placed all three of his Idlers back into the skill and the countdown sprang up to 4m, 30s. Each level so far was three times as long as the previous level.
The lower levels won’t really make too much of a difference, but what about the higher tiers like Level 1800 or Level 2000? Scouring his brain, John tried to recall the old saying with English pennies. If you give me one penny at the start of the month and double the amount each day, on the 30th day of that month, you’ll be giving me over 500 million pennies.
In this case, however, the timer didn’t start at one. There was also the fact that the amount tripled instead of doubling. John tried to calculate how long it would take in total, but found the answer too large to get an exact number. We’re not just talking about years here, but decades… maybe even centuries.
The minute passed by too quickly, and the sound of another ‘ding!’ broke John’s concentration. Deciding to focus on speed instead of quantity, he placed all four of his Idlers into the skill called ‘Idlers Speed’. With this skill, each Idler would knock an additional second of time off per skill level acquired. With four Idlers, he could cut his time down by eight per second.
As he placed all four Idlers into the skill category, however, John went pale at the time to complete it.
Idlers Speed - Idlers 4/99, -1 Second Per Idler - 0/9, Time - 1d
A day at the first level! Thank god, he didn’t decide to go into this skill right off the bat! With four idlers in the loading dock, it would only take six hours rather than twenty-four. But six hours was still too much at this point, and John knew it. In that amount of time, he could have earned another ten or more Idlers depending on the load time afte
r the tenth. Taking a deep breath, he tried to remove his Idlers from the skill.
The display flashed red for a moment, and John’s stomach sank.
Fuck… So you can’t take them out until the skill is complete? Why wasn’t THAT in the Introduction, somewhere with a big WARNING sign?!
Frustrated, he sighed and closed the display. His vision returned to normal as the grey box minimized back into the corner.
Once again taking in his surroundings, John decided to figure out a way down this cliff. He needed answers about where this place is and how he got here. He didn’t even know if he had the same face or not, which wasn’t as much of a concern as it was a curiosity.
The roar of a nearby waterfall lured John closer to the edge of the mountainside, where he could peer down and get an estimate of how steep it was. For all he knew, the drop could only be a few feet from this point—as opposed to the thirty-something-foot cliff where he woke up.
“Don’t look down, don’t look down…” Nervous mutters escaped John’s clenched jaw as he approached the edge. He stooped down onto his stomach and slowly made his way over the side just enough to get a view downward.
A two-hundred-foot drop met his gaze, and John went pale for a second time. Carefully scurrying backwards, John backed away towards the river where it was safe. He shakily brought himself to his feet and his attention was drawn back to the place where he initially woke up. After a moment of contemplation, he drifted aimlessly in that direction.
There’s no way I can survive that two-hundred-foot drop, but this other drop is shorter, so it’s a better gamble. I only saw the canopy of the trees so… there’s a chance it could be covering up a landing of some sort. Then again, it could be just as far of a drop on this side, too. I can’t risk it.
Attention diverted once more, John took a look at the boulders that he saw earlier. They were slightly taller than him, and climbing up might give him a better vantage point. He decided to go for it, and after a few minutes of struggling, he finally got into the right position. He tried to peek over the boulder, only to be met with more rocks and a clear blue sky.
With a grunt, John heaved himself up on top of the boulder. He lay on his back on the rocky surface and took a moment to catch his breath, wondering at the state of his current body. He was panting and out of breath… maybe he wasn’t in as good of a shape as he would have liked to be.
