Chapter 2 Waking up and learning about the system

I stirred awake as my senses picked up various unfamiliar noises, such as loud animal cries that didn't sound quite right. 'What the Fuck? Where even am I right now?' I thought as I opened my eyes and saw the rocky and dark ceiling of the cave. Sitting up off the hard stone floor, I looked around, confused but fairly calm—apathy for the win. It was a small place, really, not more than ten feet deep into the mountain and only a few feet wide and tall. I could barely stand up in the cave, with maybe six inches separating the top of my head from the jagged ceiling. None of that mattered, however, in the face of what I saw next appear in front of my eyes. [WELCOME HOST TO THE RANDOMIZER SYSTEM!] Dispensing starter pack! Congratulations, you've obtained 1x common language (skill), 1x Random skill ticket, 1000x Poke (currency), 1x silph co bag, 5x Balls (item), 1x random Pokemon (companion)!] "You have got to be shitting me!" I couldn't help but say in disbelief at the floating blue words in front of me. Despite not doing anything, the words collapsed into a small blue roulette wheel in the corner of my vision, leaving a bag with a Poké Ball symbol on it in midair that fell to the ground. Ignoring the fact that I tried to reopen the system. 'Uh, system?' I thought, Nothing,' and a blue screen popped up, startling me for a moment before I calmed myself down again and looked over the screen curiously. It was in a familiar RPG game-type format with my name at the top, followed by my age and then the other system features before finally showing me my actual stats. [NAME: Alexander Drake AGE: 20 RACE: Human INVENTORY: 1000 pok`e`, common language (skill), random skill ticket, 5x pokeballs, random pokemon (companion) ROULETTE TRADING SHOP QUESTS: None Pokemon: none Level: 1 SKILLS: none ABILITIES: Appraise (novice) (system ability) STRENGTH: 5 AGILITY: 5 AURA: 5 INTELLIGENCE: 5 CHARISMA: 7 LUCK: 5] Now, I may not be an expert in such matters, but even I knew that my stats were low after looking at my status screen. 'Um, I don't know if you can read my mind or some such, but could I get an explanation on your functions, please?' he mentally begged. [The host is recommended to ask more specific questions for easier assimilation of system knowledge.] The blue message popped up in front of the rest of the status screen, proving that this thing was reading his mind. 'Well, that's not concerning at all, whatever. Tell me about these stats and why they are so low,' he thought. [Strength: the ability to exert force on an object to move it. Agility: the ability to control one's movement with precision. Aura: the natural life force of all things and determines one's place in the hierarchy of life. Intelligence: the ability to learn and retain knowledge. Charisma: the ability to draw attention and attract or manipulate others via words or actions and includes one's appearance. Luck affects all things you do but is based on the probability of the outcome. A baseline adult human has an average score of 5 in each stat. I read over this information carefully before coming to accept it, as it made sense, all things considered. Before I found myself in this situation, I counted as a baseline human with no training or excessive education to speak of. 'What about the Roulette, trading shop, and quests?' I questioned it in my mind, and another answer popped up explaining each of those things. They worked exactly how I had assumed from the names. Roulette used tickets of whatever type I had to randomly draw one such type of thing. The trading shop, on the other hand, allowed me to trade items and money for tickets for the roulette. Quests, however, were a bit trickier since the system could randomly decide to assign a quest to me that I could then complete for a reward. The system had also specified that it could only assign quests that I could complete with my current means. It was also not allowed to assign quests that directly lead me to near-fatal scenarios to complete, so that was a relief. The quests were also entirely optional, so if I wanted to, I could simply opt out entirely, though I likely would not. Are you kidding me? This is the most exhilarating situation I have ever been in! 'What about the inventory? How do I use that? I asked eagerly. How could I not be eager after learning that I could be more than just another human? For the first time in a long time, I was motivated to do more than the bare minimum, and I wanted to seize every moment of it! [Inventory is tied to the largest portable storage medium available to the host.] The system explained it in its monotone blue text manner, not that I minded. 'The largest storage medium is probably this bag on the ground.' I thought as I curiously eyed the strangely normal-looking backpack curiously. If this bag worked like the ones from the games, it was frankly busted as all fucking hell. The bags in the games could carry a stupid amount of items in a manner that I can only describe as science fiction nonsense. It somehow had an expanded space in it that was much bigger than the bag's size would make one guess—that, or the even more busted ability to shrink things to tiny sizes. Either way, I eagerly picked up the bag that felt like it was made of cotton and unzipped the top of it before peering into it. The inside of the bag was fairly normal looking, as all of the normal items were the size I assumed they would be and somehow seemed to take up nearly no room. The Poké Balls were about the size of an orange, with the standard red and white plastic look you'd imagine. Three plain white tickets with black lettering said what they were for next to the small pile of golden coins with a seal of some sort, likely from the Pokemon league. Taking out the common language ticket, I spent the next five minutes trying every possible means short of destroying it to get it to activate. In the end, I chose to ask the system, embarrassed at how stupid I must have seemed before I did so. Honestly speaking, I didn't want to rely on the system more than necessary to learn, as it defeated the point of me putting in effort otherwise. Freebies are nice and all now and then, but all the time spoils the experience, like playing a game on god mode. As it turned out, the activation method was destroying the ticket on purpose. The on-purpose part was rather important, as the system warned that accidental destruction or destruction via an outside source other than me invalidated the ticket.