My teeth clench, grind together, as if they were doing a bruxism speedrun.
And then I stop. Just stop.
Staring at the notification.
I'm staring at them a lot those last few days.
Well, I'm not really staring at them, I'm not really looking at them. I see them, can read them, feel them, no matter how strange it sounds. But I'm not really looking at them.
I just stopped. Stopped doing anything, even if it's focusing on words.
Something made me stop.
My hand clutch my water bottle. Way harder then necessary. It hurt my palm, it cramps. But I don't stop squeezing.
It made me stop. And that's not because of this notification, even if it's a part of it.
My eyes stare ahead at the system notification. Behind it, gaze unfocused.
What's making me stop is this feeling.
Hungry and overwhelming, nurtured since I could ever remember.
The same angry raging coils that made me pummel Twitchy face in fine pulp.
It's always there. Like a gluttonous monster. Never sated, always wishing to eat more and more. Take more and more.
This exact feeling is what made me stop.
This is the exact feeling I'm bottling up right now.
That's why I'm staring forward. At a blank, boring wall. Frozen like time stopped.
My focus inside.
It's been a while since I felt it this clearly. Thinking about it, since Twitchy, it's been more and more present.
From making me want to die from how I hesitated, to those ugly breeding farm thoughts.
My nails dig deeper into my palm.
But to be honest,
it's always here.
Always.
Just waiting, prowling in the deepest corner of my mind.
Watching my every thought, movement, reaction, action.
Watching and analyzing.
Radying itself like an animal stalking it's prey, searching the best moment to attack, to make itself known.
My eyes are dry. I don't blink. I can't.
And right now, it decided to rampage particularly hard.
It's been a while.
It's ever present, infusing my daily life like a good plague, the bestest of kind, ready to help me.
Or destroy my entire life with intrusive thoughts fueled with nothing but relentless disgustingly hungry ambition.
This hot coil creep around my neck. Making me want to puke, or smile, or relax, or talk, or run, or fight, or train, or dance, or sing, or help, or betray, or lead, or follow.
What I want doesn't really matter.
Who I am is a pointless matter when sweet sweet power is so close to me.
Morals are for the weak he said, and I don't doubt it.
I am weak.
And it has come to change that, like always.
Standing up. I stay there, in silence for seconds that feel like hours.
Not talking, not moving, not even waiting, or listening.
Just feeling it.
Fortunately, it's not the first time.
Unfortunately, I don't think jokes will calm it down today.
Fortunately, I have another idea.
I know how to take care of it, I just need to be smart about it. Just need to do the smart thing, that's all.
I look at the safety warning again.
[For your safety, avoid using a whole point during an intense situation, such as in a fight, or filled with emotions.
Side effects, ranging from distinct personality changes, emotional changes, or abnormal growth could happen.
In function of where the point is invested and the situation, for more information please read [you do not possess the necessary clearance] ]
Considering what I've currently seen.
Orcs, goblins, giant boors, teleportation, skills, and more.
I think it's relatively safe to say that this system is the real deal.
The amount of power I can gather from it is uncertain.
With my current knowledge, and my personal belief, I'll assume that it's a substantial amount.
As long as I work well and use the good methods, sprinkled with luc- I want to puke.
It comes. Randomly. As I keep staring at the wall. The burning coils behind my throat feel like a snake, a gigantic snake sliding from my guts to my trachea.
It wants to come out. Makes me want to puke.
My bad.
Taking a small breath, I continue.
Sprinkled with nothing.
I will experiment and figure it out myself. With enough work, I won't need more luck.
Now, with this in mind, it's obvious that I would want a big piece of the-!
I retch.
It's strong today.
All the pie, I want all the pie.
Now let's talk obvious problems.
My shoulders drop down. Slightly. Glad that my thoughts keep moving.
I have no idea what this system is, why did it suddenly appear.
An universe integration apparently.
There are probably other races as my system informant talked about, they may have lied about it too.
I have no idea how it exert it's power, teleportation is a ridiculous feat I have no hint or idea on how I could even achieve.
This may also be a dream or some sort of mass manipulation.
This system managed to teleport all the humans on earth if I'm not wrong. It could manipulate all of us.
This system is a big unknown, and it's apparently helping us.
I don't know about you, but if a gigantic everpresent thing started helping us, weak little humans in the middle of an apparent universe integration.
I would get suspicious.
Yes there may be a good reason, maybe there are big laws and rules in the universe, legistlation, and this is normal procedure to protect newly integrated.
Or it may just be a plot to exploit all of us too, I have nothing but theories.
And like always, it is best to presume the worse unless I have concrete evidence opposing it.
I lick my lips, trying to distract me from the aftertaste of puke that rised up when I retched.
It can provide skills that can give people...well skills, how does it do that?
Does it mess with our brain and body?
The implications of that are truly terrifying, can anyone get skills? Whenever? Does powerful and influential power can now get the personal power to back it up?
Is the system if it is a neutral entity, corrupted? Or is it not even a neutral entity to begin with?
My grip is still tight, too tight. So I continue, laying my fear of unknowns thick.
Talking with messing with the body, let's talk about those points and this cycling a little bit. Why does killing gives experience?
Why does it give us points?
What is that, a reward that tell us, do kill more? Does that involve me? If people kill me, will people want to kill me to get that experience? Am I in danger?
How does those stats work?
They are ridiculously difficult to understand, and as it already have shown, can have severe drawbacks on me.
I take a big breath, my mind running for more ideas.
Let's talk about this
[Magic: 2
-700 mystical fear
-1000 magical instinct human chasing
-300 magical instinct human slaughthering]
This, is for sure, the reason for my recent mood changes.
There is still the possibility that I'm just showing my true colors because I'm in a desperate situation.
The coils in my throat move, less present, smaller. Satisfied.
But, again, I'll hypothetize that with how my boiling blood that was painful at first, became a comfortable burn just after I invested a whole point in magic.
It is probably the cause of my weird mood swings.
My eyes trail back down. On the veins popping on my forearm.
I'll acknowledge it, it gave me benefits.
Such as the ability to handle more pain that I could.
And the ability to move in, strange brutal ways, showing off a mastery of my body I never truly explored before.
It's useful.
However [in function of where the point is invested and the situation]
This sentence make it clear that what I'm doing affect the point distribution.
Now, considering this, and my confidence that mystical fear was the highest stat.
And that chasing was around the same level as slaughtering.
Add the changes in my narration and feelings, calling the boar a meal.
It would make total sense, that, what's affecting me the most would be this.
[-1000 magical human chasing]
Now, let us zoom out 5 times body
[Body: 10
-332 grip strength
-225 aerobic energy system
-444 anaerobic energy system
-610 anaerobic lactic energy system]
Now my aerobic energy system, the thing that make you fucking move, litterally have less substats invested than this instinct.
Now. My narration changed, my feelings changed even if slightly, it was big enough, to affect narration.
This messed with my mind. For sure. Probably because it's too big for me to handle it.
The system did warned about putting more than 50 subpoints in a substat for my 'safety'. I put more than 600-700 hundreds, from what I can guess.
I don't even know if that's normal, maybe the system would have stopped me if I didn't pressed to access the substats before.
You do recognize the problem here? No matter how good this thing make me at fighting.
It's not....optimal.
I swallow hard, my thoughts just rushing, they make no sense but I just need to do mental gymnastics. It will work.
Retreating was the better choice, the smarter choice.
And I didn't because of it.
My body is in that current state because of how reckless it made me act.
Yes, it can give me power.
A lot probably.
But if I take my time, weighting the benefits, and negatives.
Between doing dumb shit strongly.
Or keeping my mind.
Keeping my mind is clearly the better choice here, that's not even a question.
So now.
I take a deep breath, looking down at my wet and bloody shirt.
I feel the coiling, sweet whispers of conditioning, slowly retract back.
I do believe that not doing anything, before I get more information is the better choice, the smart choice.
I rest here, in the bathroom, alone, eyes closed as my breath get slower and slower, tight heart lighter, shaky fingers stable.
Today, I managed to do it.
Again.