Okay I didn’t head out right away, I did remember that I had more notifications to read. I may have been scatter brained, but I wasn’t scatter brained.

  Hopefully.

  I walked over to the edge of the cliff I’d landed on and sat down, legs dangling off the edge as I looked over the brilliant water. I took Gin out from my backpack and placed him in my lap, giving him a squeeze with both arms before I opened the notifications on the side of my vision.

  [Species: Human: Earth-2, successfully mutated to: Lumina.]

  [Skill Acquired: Augmented Reality. Rank: Unique]

  [Species Skill Acquired: Solar. Rank: F]

  [??? Skill Acquired: Dimensional Migrant. Rank: F]

  [Skill Acquired: Scholar. Rank: F]

  [You lack a language spoken by the people of this universe. Acquiring skill.]

  [Skill Acquired: Lost. Rank: E]

  Five skills, this really was starting to feel like a game now. Oh and my species change, but I already knew about that one.

  I made the immediate assumption that F was the lowest rank, and that a more powerful skill would be rated with letters earlier in the alphabet, like B, or A. Maybe there were more ranks after A, some games liked to use S or SS to denote things that surpassed the normal scaling, but I’d have to wait and find out.

  Apparently “Unique” was a rank, but that was probably a special case. My assumption here was that unique didn’t necessarily mean good, it just meant that no one else had it.

  I read over the descriptions of my skills and explained them to my teddy bear.

  “So basically, I’ve got this virtual reality interface, as a skill. Weird design choice. Why is it a skill and not just part of the game? Could I have somehow not gotten that skill and then been stuck going through the game without a User Interface? That would have been wild. Oh sorry, you’re right, I’m rambling. Next is Solar which gives me a little boost while I’m in the sun, seems like your classic passive skill. Dimensional Migrant means I get to use dimension magic, that should be fun.”

  I paused, reading over the last two a few more times. Then cautiously continued my explanation to Gin.

  “These last two. I don’t have any clue how someone would implement something like this. Scholar says it raises my cognition speed. That isn’t something that should be possible with the tech we put on the spacecraft. Maybe it like, slows time down for the entire world by a little bit? Letting me move at normal speed? But that would just be super speed. I guess if I stay the same speed physically, but my mind keeps moving at normal speed? No clue. If you have any thoughts feel free to share them.”

  Gin’s two black orbs for eyes stared back at me silently.

  “Okay, okay I’ll read the last one too, jeez. It’s really similar to scholar in the same kind of strange ways. Lost says that it massively increases the speed at which I learn new languages, but only until I gain fluency in one of the languages of this world. Now how is that possible for a game to do? And also, isn’t that like, totally exploitable? I could keep encountering languages and never reaching fluency in them and have a whole amalgamation of partially learned languages at my disposal.”

  I stared off into the shining waves of the sea for a few moments as I thought about what I had just said.

  “That actually sounds kinda dumb. I wouldn’t be able to properly communicate with anyone.”

  I continued exploring all the features of my new augmented reality “skill” by mentally selecting different parts and seeing what all it told me. I was given a color indicator for my health, stamina, and mana which all simply said and looked “green” which I assumed was good. I poked around for a while to see if I could have it give me numbers, so I’d know when things were dire, but I wasn’t able to figure out how to add numbers to the screen. So, colors would have to do for now.

  I found my attributes, which were all rank F. Aside from spirit for some reason, which was rank F+. There was Physique, Agility, Spirit, Strength and Perception which were all pretty self-explanatory. Except spirit, which probably had to do with mana if I had to guess. I didn’t see a way to raise my attributes, or a level for myself, or how many skill slots I had.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  In fact, there was a distinct lack of numbers in all the information I could find. That was incredibly odd for a game if I do say so myself (which I did (right there)), but maybe my dad was just trying to break the mold. Didn’t seem like him, he always loved retro games and those usually were very clear with their numbers.

  I also noticed the absence of a logout button which was… mildly concerning. I checked all the different spots I could see, tried saying phrases like “log out” or “status” or “settings.” Nothing brought me to a menu that let me leave the game.

  Maybe I was still in the tutorial or something?

  No biggie, not like I had other things to do, the autopilot would keep me on course and if anything drastic happened surely the pod would jerk me out like it did with the wormhole. Or like it seemed to have done with the wormhole? I was still trying to parse through my recent memories and denote these events as not real, but it wasn’t exactly easy.

  It was a little regrettable that I hadn’t gotten some sort of an active skill, like solar beam, or death ray, or magic shield. I guess I had my laser pistol for combat for now. Then again, I was assuming I’d be in conflict. Maybe this was some sort of survival and learning game. If that was the case my skills made a lot of sense; there still would be some combat but if it wasn’t the main focus…

  “Gin what kind of game do you think dad would make?”

  Silence.

  “Okay but if you had to guess?”

  Silence.

  “It’d probably be an adventure game, right? Lots of action. Stories to be told. Friends to make. It definitely wouldn’t be a mystery that’s for sure.” I said with a laugh. “He loved puzzles, so maybe it would be a puzzle game of some sort. Knowing him it wouldn’t be a survival game, so I probably won’t be just planting crops and using the terraform module.”

  I looked out across the water again. I loved the feeling of just sitting here. The air was cool and fresh. It made me want to just take a deep breath and let go of all of my worries. I saw a large spider-legged creature climbing the rocks below me. It had four legs that came to points, and a large round body with six eyes, four on its back and two on its front. Must have a lot of airborne predators I thought.

  If it was a puzzle game, which, while possible, was unlikely. But if it was true, I’d want to make sure I didn’t miss anything in this starting area. So, my next step was probably hidden somewhere in the information I already had, in my skills, or in my environment. Alternatively, maybe I could try some dimension magic and see what that was like? Create some sort of dimensional rift to the next area? It was possible that was my next step forward.

  I decided to give it a shot and began focusing on the skill. I focused really, really hard on the skill.

  “Dimensional Incursion!” I shouted while holding my hand out.

  Nothing happened.

  My face turned a little red from embarrassment.

  Why didn’t this come with an instruction manual? What was the point of a tutorial, or this augmented reality skill if it didn’t tell me how to use things? It wasn’t like I could feel the energy around me or knew how to access my mana on instinct. This was not a system I was familiar with. Usually, games just did all the overhead for you when you thought about stuff. I tried thinking hard about everything that was around me to see if I could maybe reach out to this dimensional magic and pull on it.

  But alas, the great hero of the light (me) was not such a prodigy.

  Instead of being defeated by such a setback, I decided it was the wrong approach to the assumed puzzle. I picked up Gin and moved back to the space pod, noting the pathway into the forest off to my right once again. If I sufficiently determined that there wasn’t a puzzle here, I’d follow it.

  I climbed back inside the slightly less smoking ship, checking every piece I remembered from the blueprints I’d worked on with him. I didn’t find anything of note, there was definitely some salvageable electronics here if that ended up being the focus of the game, which I was quickly disregarding as a possibility.

  Not based on anything, just because I didn’t want it to be, and I couldn’t imagine my dad making it one. Imagine floating through space and randomly being sucked into your dad’s farming simulator. That kind of surprise wasn’t exactly pleasant or welcome. Maybe if you had an affinity for farming simulators, like I apparently had for dimension magic, but neither of us did. So that fell into the “less than likely” category.

  Leaving the ship once more, no more burdened than when I entered, I began examining the crash site in earnest. I’d only given this place a once over when I was concussed and barely conscious due to pain, so I wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed anything in my less than stellar state of mind.

  I searched the outside of the ship’s hull looking for something out of place, or something that jogged my memory of something that was exclusive to the outside of the ship. But I saw nothing and nothing came to mind.

  I sighed and looked down at the ground. Maybe the ground would have some—holy cow I had actually landed on someone.

  Io’s Skill List:

  [Skill: Solar – Rank: F – Description: The Children of the light thrive in the sunlight, and you follow in their footsteps. You gain minor benefits while in direct sunlight.]

  [Skill: Dimensional Migrant – Rank: F – Description: One who has passed through the veil between universes, your body has experienced forces beyond comprehension and grown from it. Grants minor resistance to dimensional forces, and a slight attunement towards dimensional magic.]

  [Skill: Lost – Rank: E – Description: A stranger in a strange world, everything and everyone is new and interesting to you, and you need a way to communicate with those around you. Gain a massive increase to the speed at which you learn your first language. This skill will become inactive upon reaching fluency in a language.]

  [Skill: Augmented Reality – Rank: Unique – Description: Grants an interface through which to view yourself and the world around you.]

  [Skill: Scholar – Rank: F – Description: Gain a slight increase to cognition speed.]

  Attributes:

  Physique: F

  Agility: F

  Spirit: F+

  Strength: F

  Perception: F