System Change

Derek drew his glaive and Silvi tensed on his shoulder. There was a voice, but nobody visible. In fact, Derek couldn’t feel the presence of anyone or anything. “Who’s there?”

“No need to be so anxious,” the voice said. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

That didn’t help Derek relax at all. He was supposed to be in Cydaria with the rest of his party, but he and Silvi had been what? Intercepted? By someone or something? So no, he wasn’t going to relax.

“Fine, fine,” the voice chuckled. Out of nowhere, a figure began to fade into being.

Derek watched as the figure solidified right before his eyes. Silvi grew even more tense on his shoulder where she was sitting. After a short amount of time, a fully solid figure was standing before them.

“How is this?” the figure asked.

Derek took in the sight in front of him. The figure seemed to be a young member of the elven race. From his feet to his neck, he was covered in a brown robe—on which matched his medium length brown hair and deep brown eyes. The person in front of him had the same trademark pointy ears as all the other elves Derek had met. The elven man was about half a foot shorter than Derek, maybe 5’6’’ or 5’7’’, and he stared at the two companions with questioning eyes and a half smirk.

Other than that, his features were basic. Derek had seen some elves—actually, all elves that Derek had the ‘pleasure’ of meeting had been much more beautiful than the one standing in front of him. If anything, he would say that the elf in front of him was more like an elf with human features—other than the ears. He had a plain face and a slightly pointed nose. Nothing really stood out about the elf.

In fact, nothing at all stood out about the elf. Derek could feel no energy coming from the young looking elven man. Even if he focused hard, if he shut his eyes, it was like there was no one standing there. Forget relaxing. This made Derek even more anxious.

“Who… are you?” Derek cautiously asked.

“Who am I?” the man asked as he took a step forward, causing Derek to take a step back. “That’s not of real importance right now. We’re here to talk about you—you and your companion. But, if you need a name, you can call me… Dave. Hmm… yes, Dave will work.” The man smiled as he took another step forward. “Now, have a seat. We’ve things to discuss and little time to do so.”

Derek took another step away from the man, but to his surprise, he tripped over something and fell back—into a recliner. What the!? He couldn’t help but look around in awe at the chair he was in. It was thread for thread, identical to some of the reclining chairs Derek had seen or even used back on Earth. This was not something he’d seen since arriving in Cydaria. They had some cushioned seats, especially the ones he’d gotten for his shop, but never had he seen such a lazy… comfortable chair.

“Coffee?” the man asked, and before Derek’s eyes, a coffee table appeared next to him with a steaming cup of coffee sitting directly in the middle. “It is a very good beverage, might I add?”

Feeling overwhelmed and struggling to keep up, Derek’s body reacted on its own as he reached out and took the handle of the coffee cup and brought the drink up to his nose. It was a heavenly aroma of the smoky and earthiness that comes with a perfectly brewed cup of dark roasted coffee.

“Hey! Stop it!” Silvi’s words coming from her collar broke Derek out of his thoughts and he sat the cup back down without taking a sip. Derek looked over to his shoulder, thankful to his companion for seeing that he was out of sorts. “Where’s mine?” then he nearly facepalmed as she requested her own treat.

“Of course, I wouldn’t leave you out. How rude of me would it be to not offer my other guest refreshments?” Instantly, another table appeared on the opposite side of the coffee table. This one, however, had a cushion on one side and a few dishes and bowls of liquid sat out in front of it. The cushion was perfectly sized for the small bunny, and she knew it.

Before Derek could stop her, she was sitting on the cushion and sniffing at the bowl, then, she gently stuck out her tongue and touched it to the liquid inside. She drew back and closed her eyes before opening them and looking at the elven man who had somehow found his own seat while Derek was distracted by Silvi. “Yum. Very sweet. Give me the recipe.”

“For someone who says we don’t have much time, you sure are taking your own,” Derek said before the man could respond to Silvi.

“Discussions are much smoother when everyone is comfortable.” The man shrugged.

“Okay… Dave. What do you want? Where are we? Where is the rest of my party?” Derek put his glaive away.

“You do not need to worry about any of that. Everyone is safe, and you will soon be back with them.” The man waved Derek’s questions off. “I’m sure you have other, more relevant questions. Particularly, questions about your evolution and the other system.”

Derek’s eyes widened. “How?”

“How can I talk about it? What about the oath?” The man chuckled. “I have no oath. And it wouldn’t matter if I did because it is something we both know of. I may know more, but it is all something you will learn in time. The Origin System may be harsh, but it isn’t nefarious or evil.”

Derek continued to stare, not saying anything.

“Now, I have been watching you since you appeared on… here… attached to a Universal System. That was very interesting, by the way. Not unheard of, but very interesting. And congratulations on surviving the transition between systems.” The man… Dave, stopped talking as Derek gave him an intense glare. “What? Don’t blame me. Your level was low, and your stats were high. It was relatively safe. It’s not like you’re the first person it’s happened to.”

“But my life was at risk?” Derek asked.

“Only a teensy bit,” the man said. “But would you have preferred the alternative? Being stuck here without access to any system at all? We even did you a favor and rolled some of your titles into your transition.”

This man talks like he has some control over the system. “Who are you?” Derek asked once again, this time with even more suspicion. “Are you like a system admin, or a moderator or something?” Derek always compared the systems to that of video games from Earth, and those are the terms he’d use in those circumstances.

“Something like that,” Dave replied, but didn’t elaborate. “Now, let me ask you a question. How long were you trapped in the void?”

“Don’t you know? Two years.” Derek said smugly. He was 27 when he went into Silvi Jaccobs’ Portal, and when he finally came out, his new system said he was 29. Of course, he was 30 now, so it may have been more like two and a half years.

“No. Not how long your body aged physically, but how long were you in there?” The man reiterated.

What the hell? Why not answer? He seems to know everything else, and by the looks of it, he could crush me with a finger. “I don’t know. I meditated for such a long part of it. It wasn’t like I had a calendar to keep track of the days as they passed. If I had to guess, I would say 100 years or more, maybe a bit less. But it was a long, long time.”

“I see,” the man said as he took a sip of a cup of coffee that hadn’t been in his hand a moment ago. “That would explain your extremely high Meditation skill. Especially since it was basic meditation under no threats, multipliers, or system assistance with essence.” He nodded. “Very interesting.”

“Okay… what does me being in the void have to do with anything?” Derek asked.

“Well, it has everything to do with everything,” Dave answered. “You see, no matter what you may think right now, I am not a mind reader. But I believed you were highly exaggerating how long you spent inside the void the couple times that you hinted at it.”

Okay, not a mind reader, but definitely a voyeur. I don’t know what’s worse. “Oh, and now you don’t?” Derek asked.

“How could I? Especially after you reached a high enough affinity to evolve and get the Origin System to pay attention to such a place? In fact, I believe you have been severely underestimating the length of your stay in the void.”

Derek leaned forward. These were answers to some of the questions he’d been repeatedly asking himself. “What does that mean?” he asked.

“It means that your body naturally reached an evolution point with its affinity, and assistance had to be requested to help in the evolution. But instead of the assistance I wanted, the damn Origin System came and assisted.” For the first time, Dave seemed to get heated about something.

“Why is that a bad thing?” Derek asked.

“In the long run? It isn’t… at least not for you,” Dave replied after calming. “In the short term? You can no longer be rewarded internal rewards in this system. That means no direct stats, no direct skill points, no direct upgrade points…”

“Why?” Derek asked.

Dave gestured wide at the surroundings. “Because your body has evolved past the point of interference from us.”

“If that’s so, why am I still able to obtain experience points or increase my skill levels?” Derek asked. “And what about my durability? Shouldn’t have that increased? That beast didn’t have a problem taking my foot off, after all.”

“That’s gathered essence quantified into something easy to understand, not directly increasing your level and skills. And the evolution has increased the amount of essence your body can absorb to fit with your high affinity.” But Dave waved that away. “But that is neither here nor there. The problem is that once the Origin System came, it became interested.”

“And what does that mean?” Derek asked. He did have some questions about experience points, but he would let the man finish what he wanted before he asked.

“With it there, the… Great System…” Derek didn’t miss the man rolling his eyes at the name of the system. “Defaulted to its basics and we could no longer interfere.”

“You interfered before?” Derek asked.

“Of course I interfered before. I made sure you received the best offensive skill in the reward pool after the second trial. But did you use the Dragon Fire scroll? Nope. You just stored it away. At least it ended up going to someone who can make use of it.” The elf looked at Silvi, who was still munching away on her refreshments. “But then you evolved.”

“What about the Achievement from the whale?” Derek asked. “That was after I evolved.”

“That wasn’t a dungeon reward,” Dave replied. “It is a universal title or achievement.”

Oh… Derek thought. Then the Achievement everyone got at the end of the dungeon was specific to the Great System and its dungeons. Avery said that it was for completing a dungeon at the highest difficulty. I guess difficulty is relevant based on the system. Just how many systems are there? He’d finally gotten some system names, though. There’s the Great System, the Universal System, and the Origin System.

“Well… that’s answers that question,” Derek said. “Now, I somehow got to the point to evolve, but the current system couldn’t handle it, so it requested assistance. Then, instead of whoever was supposed to help came, this Origin System decided that I was interesting and decided it would help. What else?”

The man sighed. “Because part of it was interested, instead of helping you through the evolution and going on its way, it decided to keep an eye on the dungeon. Then, it decided to test you with a little challenge. I admit, I am not thrilled about lives being lost due to the Origin System’s whims. But there is nothing I can do there.”

Derek snorted. Hypocrite. You just confessed to doing the same thing with me when I arrived.

The elven man looked amused by Derek. “May I continue?”

“Go ahead.”