Water dripped from Kane’s face. He looked at himself in the mirror but saw no reflection of the blue screen in front of him. This meant that only he could see it or that it was something that was unable to be reflected. 

“It’s at ninety percent, so I will just have to wait and see, I guess…” Kane mumbled as he grabbed a hand towel at the side and dried his face. Even after washing his face multiple times with cold water, he was still seeing the blue screen. But he knew now it was no dream. He could feel the coldness of the water. It was too real to be a dream. 

Kane went back to his bedroom and laid down on his bed. He put his forearm on his forehead and watched as the progress bar continued forward. When it finally hit the one hundred percent mark, the small window disappeared, and a large window appeared in front of him.

{Star System Loading 10%…}

{Star System Loading 30%…}

{Star System Loading 50%…}

{Star System Loading 70%…}

{Star System Loading 100%…}

{Star System Activating…..}

{User Kane Woods registered….}

{Updating Status….}

{Status Updated….}

{Loading Status Screen….}

Kane watched as the screen once more changed, and now a screen with his name and many numbers appeared.

{Star System}
[Name]: Kane Woods
[Age]: 18
[Star Rating]: 0
[Current Mission]: N/A 

[Status Points]: 5

[Strength]: 15
[Stamina]: 10
[Intellect]: 20
[Agility]: 10
[Dexterity]: 10
[Charisma]: 15

[Skill Points]: 2

[Skills]
{Singing (Lvl 1)} {Acting (Lvl 1)} {Martial Arts (Lvl 1)} {Cooking (Lvl 2)} 
{Music Composition (Lvl 1)} {Screen Writing (Lvl 1)} {Dishwashing (Lvl 2)} 
{House Cleaning (Lvl 2)}

Kane looked at the stats on his screen, and his face fell slightly. “My stats are kind of low, no?” He pursed his lips. He did not know what the standard was. But he felt the basic stats that this screen was showing him were quite low. He decided to play along a little since he had no idea what he was really looking at. He looked at the screen for a while and at the plus buttons next to each of his stats and skills and finally reached his hand out toward strength. He felt that if he was going to see a difference in anything, it would be strength.  He tapped the strength button a few times, spending all five points he had on it.

He then rolled out of bed and walked over to the weights he had in the corner of the room. He used them quite often, so he knew what he could lift. His bars were already set up to the max he could lift with one hand. He reached down and got a firm grip on one of them and lifted it… it was just…. “So easy?”

He lifted it a few times with both arms and found that he did not struggle like he used to with his left hand anymore. Both arms seemed to be at the same strength. He felt no changes in his body, but he had definitely become stronger. “Just what is going on?” Kane scratched his head and looked at the screen in front of him once more.  He saw that all of his level 1 skills also had a plus sign next to them besides those that were level 2. 

He looked at his skills and frowned slightly. He did not realize dishwashing would be considered a skill, and it was even at level 2! What aggravated him about this was because his singing was only at level 1. This meant he was a better dishwasher than he was at singing! But… Kane reached out with his hand and pressed the plus button next to singing. His singing level turned from 1 to 2.

While he still did not feel anything, if it was like his strength stat, then his ability to sing should have been boosted slightly. “If this is really a dream, then I do not want it to end.” 

Kane sighed and looked at the status window. He did not know how to gain more points to spend, but if this was truly a method of being able to update his skills, then he would be blessed with a cheat only seen in fantasy. He had already proved that he had become stronger. He could not tell about his singing yet, but he figured that could come later. For now, he needed to figure out how to close the menu. Just as he was thinking this, the menu closed on him, causing Kane to panic. 

“Wait, I didn’t mean now!” He did not know how to open it! He had to figure out both before he lost it for good! Luckily, while he was thinking about opening the menu again, it actually opened. He breathed a sigh of relief. “So I only need to think about open and closing it.” 

He did this a few times to make sure it worked. Only after doing it a few dozen times did he finally lay down and wondered if it would still be there when he woke. 

Kane’s alarm was blaring in his ear. He opened his sleepy eyes and slowly got out of bed. He did not sleep all that well last night after waking up and going back to sleep eight times throughout the night. He kept worrying the system thing would disappear. He thought about opening the menu. He watched as it slowly opened and let out a sigh of relief. It was still there! 

“I need to go to Stacey’s house.” Yawning, he looked at his clock to see it was six am. The morning sun was just coming up. He quickly made his way to the bathroom to take a quick shower while staring at his stats. He still did not know how to get more. There was no explanation for anything. But he did notice the current mission spot on the status screen. It currently was at N/A, which meant no mission. 

Sighing, he closed the menu and finished brushing his teeth. He probably needed to do these mission things in order to gain more points. He kinda felt stupid for spending all his points last night. The singing upgrade was not bad, but he wondered why he had to go and put all his points into strength like an idiot. “I will just figure it out later. Walking Stacey to school is my top priority at this time. I can not go back on my promises…”