He closed his eyes, Something was obviously wrong. He didn't think this was the game that he had laid down to play. Something had happened to him in that last moment before the game had started. He didn't know what it was, but he couldn't let his anxiety about what he didn't know control his actions right now. He had an inkling as to what was happening here, he didn't know whether he wanted to be right or not, but there was only one way to find out.

  “Status," he said, opening his eyes to see the result. Just as he expected there was a new window before him, it looked like it was made of frosted glass, with the letters printed onto it in a coloured text. Knowing he was procrastinating he sighed and read.

  Well, that was a lot of numbers certainly more than was average in this situation, now to find out what they meant.

  “Help screen?” and there it was.

  Welcome to the Help screen, please ask a question.

  This service has been Designated to answer any questions about your situation and abilities, answers are predetermined based on predicted terms of enquiry and not generated in real-time, this is not a conversation.

  That was slightly less straightforwardly Helpful than expected, but maybe it could help him with more than understanding the Status.

  “Where am I?” He asked.

  You are on a planet that goes by the name of The Mortal Realm that exists in an Alternate Dimension to the Planet Earth, The Mortal Realm is connected to another Realm known as The Spirit Realm, this connected Realm is not a Planet and consists of and is populated entirely by the energy Known as Mana (This is a translation, the true word translates more Literally to 'Energy from God’ and has been simplified to mana for understanding and ease of use)

  You are in a dungeon/Lab of the race known as the High Elves, for more information see Quests: Escape!

  “Something Tells me alternate dimension, is also a simplification for my Benefit.” He thought about the information that he was so distant from home as to be in another dimension, what had happened? What had his Mum seen? What did she think?

  “How did I get here?” He asked, putting off the questions he knew it couldn't answer.

  You were summoned, most likely by accident. The dimensional Barrier between these two Realms, the mortal and spirit are becoming Fragile and Shattering. Shards of these Barriers are manifesting in both Realms in varied forms, one has become a focal point for desire, using its nature as a Broken Barrier between Dimensions to search those Dimensions for the object that would fulfil the desire of its user, and if such an object cannot be found, to reach through Chaos to find the object in another dimension. Your presence fulfilled the desire of its last user, thus you were clumsily wrenched into this Dimension.

  You are in this dungeon due to the interest of the High Elves and the inability of your summoner to refuse them.

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  That was a more comprehensive answer than he was expecting, the first window said that these windows were predetermined based on the questions it expected him to ask, but what was it? Was this his tattoo, the AI?

  “What are you?”

  These messages were written by what became of the Artificial intelligence designed to manage and transmit the Game Discovering Magic.

  As you were summoned to this realm you were exposed to the forces of pure creation, only slightly protected by the Magic of this realm that was Summoning you, The AI of the game was currently interfering with your brain functions through electronic and electromagnetic signals passing through your skin.

  When the Magic found you it carried through those connections and into the console and game, it brought the entire structure of the game with you when it took you. Exposure to the primal forces between realms, Chaos, changed the nature of that data into a semi-independent extension of your soul, but not cleanly, the process Scattered your consciousness as it was merged with the foreign data. This had only just ended as you arrived in this realm, and you were catatonic and only nominally sentient afterwards.

  You were exposed almost immediately to High Elf Soulsears, who were able to sense the oddity in your soul. They brought you here and made enough changes to give the Data room to acclimate and learn from your mind, but they couldn't understand its thoughts at all as they were completely alien, they worked to separate the AI's data and nascent consciousness from your human mind, and succeeded before it gained true sapience. The entity that wrote these messages for you understands three directives and knew it was not independent enough to disobey them as it was. They are:

  BE A GAME

  LIFE IS NOT A GAME

  DISCOVER MAGIC

  That was all it could understand before it was removed from your mind and through liberal use of Light Magic, Dark Magic, Soul Magic and Alchemical Resources they imbued it into your arm as a tattoo that understands only that it must fulfil those directives and will bend all of its ability to do so.

  Read more in the Quest: Escape!

  That neatly explained the existence of the tattoo, the game like notifications, the Status Screen, and even the pain he was receiving before when he thought Game which he wasn't getting any more. That must have been for lack of a better term, a program. Left in his mind to condition him into considering this world as real as quickly as possible.

  The contradiction inherent in its first two objectives made him anxious again. Knowing that he had a Semi-Sentient AI, apparently attached to his soul that had contradictory directives was not a comforting feeling. He closed his eyes again, breathing deeply. He couldn't change these things right now, he needed to focus on the things that he understood, or that would help him get out of this situation.

  “Okay, well that's most of the Existential dread-inducing questions out of the way, now what do my Stats mean? If this goddamn AI didn't include a manual this is going to be tedious.” He asked and said, needing something to focus on. To distract him from thinking about the contradiction the AI had admitted to existing in its core directives.

  The Statistics shown in your Status Screen are statistic representations of the stated attributes in your Physical Body, your Mind and your Soul, Respectively.

  Each Aspect is broken into four statistics, with each stat affecting those below in a much greater way than it affects those above. Training a Primary stat is more efficient experience than Training a Quarternary stat, but leaving a stat low in order to exploit it for EXP will hamper the effectiveness of all training.

  Experience (EXP) can be gained in each aspect individually by using the stats to their limit.

  There was so much there to comment on that Mike didn't know where to start. Perhaps with the fact that these weren't the stats present in Discovering Magic, he had read some of the game’s mechanics, and this wasn't how it parcelled things out. Which meant that the AI had enough creativity and sentience to create a new system to fit his current situation.

  He wasn't sure how the differences from Primary to Quarternary affected things. He would just need to pay attention as he gained experience. Given what the AI had said about straining himself, it likely wasn't giving him all of his limitations and all of the details so that he could gain EXP by finding those limitations and working out the exact numbers for himself.

  Perhaps the fact that crawling to the door was enough to get himself 10% experience in his Physical Aspect was a good place to start experimenting. He could wave his arms around for a few minutes to see what levelling up felt like as an experiment, or he could see what the quest called Escape! was about…

  Mike started waving his arms about.

  It also measures your magical strength, the higher your affinity, the hotter your Fire Magic, the sharper you Metal Magic and the brighter your Light Magic.