Gamer

You can see how it effected the last chapter. Instead of waiting until the morning as I should have so I could check it again, I released it.

The original draft of this chapter was so bad, I ended up rewriting the entire thing. This is partly because as someone pointed out, I was spamming the enter b.u.t.ton for my sentences. Which had me writing the story in stilted lines, the story didn"t flow like it should have.

The setting of the story has now been defined, so the pace will start to pickup.

Its only for me to know.

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Over the next week, I attended school, went to my job at the supermarket and when I came home, I whacked the log.

"You have entered Stein Highschool", "You have entered Stein Supermarket", "You have entered Cliff"s Family Home" and the like. As a experiment, I tried a few locations I didn"t know the names of.

Asian shop with some sign I couldn"t translate = "Chinese Foods Shop"

Lawn of random house = "Arther"s Family Home"

I eventually stopped visiting.

After a week of training, the log had big dents in the sides from where I was. .h.i.tting it, I was pounding away at the log when I heard a sharp crack and the bat splintered into two. I was grinding my club skill then, my STR and END were barely increasing from the training I was doing. I didn"t have anything else I could use to whack the log with, and pushups and situps and the like were not going to work. I just didn"t lose my stamina fast enough.. Ah yes, the miraculous effect of my stats..

But seriously, when is the last time you"ve seen one of those?

So having determined I would have to train alone again, I decided to make myself a new bat, it was a great way to train up my club skill until my previous bat broke. We had a pine forest nearby, which was accessible to the public. There was also barely any undergrowth so it was easy enough to walk through. However, when I looked around the ground for a thick piece of wood. I realised my error.

I then learned a new skill.

You have learned the skill Carpentry

mm. Nice enough. However I didn"t care enough to look at the description. It was obvious enough.

I then heard the ever familiar *tring*

You have learned the subskill Carpentry: Carving

Not so useful a skill, what am I supposed to make? Clubs and bows? A staff?

DEX +1

My club complete, I put the tools away and cleaned up the small mess I had created. Returning to the backyard, I then resumed my training with the bat.

Where my bat thunked against the log, my new club slammed into the log. I could feel pity for the log..

HP -1

However my club skills were gaining experience faster and my shock resistance was also gaining experience again. My STR should also increase faster.

The holidays started and the manager was pleased with me, she made me fulltime and my schedule was changed. I now worked in the mornings and had my afternoons free. I was making more money than ever, and eventually had enough to afford myself a computer. Unlike my last computer, I didn"t want to get another second hand computer. Instead I wanted to get something new, something I could call mine from the very beginning.

I had time off on the weekends, so two weeks into the holidays I went to the bank. I didn"t have a card as I simply didn"t spend my money, after 4 weeks of working, I now had $1200 in my bank which should be able to net me a decent computer. I asked to withdraw $1100 in cash. You would normally think that"s pretty stupid to do, like I"m just asking to be mugged.

But after placing the loose bundle of notes in my pockets, I heard the *tring*.

You have learned the skill Banker

Interesting..

Moving to a secluded area, I then checked the description.

SkillBankerLevel1 [21%]Your carried money is now stored inside the system

Inside my character window, a new entry appeared.

NameJonathan Clifft.i.tlesGamerLevel9 [95%]Balance$1100Health288/288Stamina274/274VIT26STR28END25AGI21DEX17INT27WIS29LUK17

Skills

Cooking lv.7 [55%]

Cooking: Boiling lv.3 [84%]

Jogging lv.5 [74%]

Blunt Weapons: Clubs lv.24 [12%]

Shock Resistance lv.13 [42%]

Reading lv.14 [64%]

Storytelling lv.7 [4%]

Footwork lv.5 [63%]

Walking lv.9 [67%]

Sprinting lv.4 [35%]

Carpentry: Carving lv.1 [89%]

Banker lv.1 [21%]

When I touched it, a small window appeared.

[table]td100]Define currency and amount[/td100[table]

I thought of the money I had originally. As if by magic, a tight bundle of notes appeared just blinked into my hand. Unlike the notes I had originally, these were crisp, fresh, and professionally arrayed. With a small grin on my face, I looked at the bundle of cash in my hand. This was pretty cool. I did a few small experiemts, this new ability even allowed me to take out money in different denominations. However I had one thought.

However when I tried to summon the money outside my body, it didn"t work very well. It looked to have a limited range and some criteria that I need to meet.

Depositing the money back into my balance, I walked to the nearby electronics shop. The shop a.s.sistant was helping someone else across the store and noticed me come in. He nodded and I took a quick look around. Upon spotting the computer section, I quickly strolled over and started looking over the listings. But when I looked through what was on offer, I was dismayed. Most of the prices were higher than my budget.

The a.s.sistant finished up with their customer and walked over. Dressed in a blue shirt and black pants, he looked to be a little older than me. I idly wondered how long he had been working here.

Daniel Cray lv.3

Reaching me, he started talking "Hi there! You interested in getting a computer?" he brightly asked.

"Ah.." he nodded. "Well, you are probably looking at getting one of the cheaper ones then"

I looked at him in the eye as I said

He swallowed the lie.

My ability even allowed me to summon coins.

I made it home safely and soon had my laptop plugged in. As it was charging, I started it up. Then I grimaced.

Less than a hour later, I finished reinstalling the OS. With all the unwanted programs gone, I hooked it up with wireless. It took me some time to catchup to everything I was behind on. My email and a few communities had a lot of things that I was behind on.

Starting up Ciype, I had a huge backlog of messages. Most of them were from players of Balizen, everyone wanted to talk to me. As I started scrolling through them, one of our group members noticed I was online.

[Cranked] dude. wat happened to u?

[Cranked] u there?

[Cranked] no worries. tell me when u r done.

It took ages to read through them all, there was the predictable "Omg what just happened" from my group to "Omg what"s happening to the game" from a variety of people to the "I want Balizen!" in chats to a general "G.o.d this sucks" from everyone. And then my Ciype just exploded once that video was leaked. A lot of messages were hate, I just removed them from my contacts, along with a few people who wanted to hear what happened from me. I found it impossible to read all of the messages. After the first thousand, I just skimmed through them. There was no real news.

I turned my attention back towards the chat.

[Petar] John"s finally on?

[Petar] What"s he been doing...

[Petar] lol. Wouldn"t be too surprised :P

[JohnSmith] I"m here you know

[Yind] What happened to you?

[Yind] Seriously? You mean overheated?

[JohnSmith] I literally couldn"t hear anything after it

[JohnSmith] Oh its pretty easy to replicate. Just smash a giant crystal.

[Petar] But still. Why"d you not come on for a long time?

[Yind] Couldn"t you borrow your mums computer or something?

[Petar] Oh right. You guys know each other irl

[Cranked] yeah. tbh its kinda freaky. he posted the most out of us bout balizen then suddenly he was quiet

[Yind] Well anyways, its great to see you back.

There wasn"t really that much to talk to them about. If it wasn"t obvious, Cranked was the guy who leaked the video. He never did treat things as seriously as he should.

Yawning, I looked outside at the growing darkness. The streetlights flickered on as I watched and a car quietly drove past.

I was really getting to like those.