Upon arrival in his new world, Arthias did a quick once over of himself. He was taller, and a bit pale skinned, but he would need to find a reflective surface to get a full look at himself. At the very least, he knew now that he had a new body. He also felt lighter and freer in motion, meaning the years of physical decline from sitting at a desk filling out paperwork was stripped away. He almost felt as though he was fresh from the physical testing of high school, but it could have just been his imagination.
After checking out what he could of himself, he took a look at his surroundings. He seemed to be in some sort of forest or jungle, with tree growth in all directions, though it was sparse enough to allow light to filter through to the ground. Enough to even allow different plants to grow without much restriction. He saw various types of flowers, herbs, fungi, and other assorted underbrush. It was obvious this world didn't suffer from the levels of pollution his old one had.
After getting some of his bearings, he saw a small tent and a fire nearby. Walking over to it, he had a mental image appear in his mind. This was apparently a starting campsite for him. It would allow him to rest and recover his health, and had a circle of protection against hostility around it that would last for... Four hours?! What?
"Sonofabitch!" Yami snarled in his mind. "That fucker really screwed us over already."
"What's up," Arthias asked as he retreated into his mind to see Yami pacing furiously in the control room.
Yami looked at him and made an angry expression. Not too uncommon, but at least Arthias didn't feel like it was his fault for once.
"That bastard gave us quite the handicap. I've been reviewing our so called basic knowledge and advantages we attained, that is, the skipping of childhood and skills we acquired, and we're pretty much fucked over."
Arthias slumped back, already exhausted, because he knew Yami only got this mad if things were not going his way.
"So, what's the damage?"
"The damage? Massive. The screwjob? Immaculate. Turns out that by not being born here, we don't get access to the world's system. We can't even figure out what our skills do without trial and error, and judging from the lower grade, it won't even be much in the first place. Second, without this system, we can't even equip weapons or armor. We have to have an inventory for that apparently."
"An inventory? System? What are those?"
"Apparently this world runs on a similar logic to games, whatever the hell those are. Levels, HP, stats, all sorts of things are bound to the system of this world. We start at level one, which we would have easily been higher level if we had been a two year old child here. But we're a full adult, so we're already behind the curve on that. We have four hours of safety here at our starting location, and then we're going to be dealing with some nasty beasts. Apparently even a basic wolf here is loaded with abilities to hunt us with."
"Well we have a few abilities ourselves. I'm sure we can at least outsmart some beast."
"You don't get it. Giving each of us one ability was another layer to this joke being played on us. Yeah, multiple ability humans are great, but the way we were given them makes us no different than a beast, really. Humans on this world can use their abilities freely, weaving them in combat to devastating effect. Beasts can only use one ability at a time, so fighting them isn't too hard if they have overall low ability power. But since our abilities are locked to each persona, we're basically no different than the animals here, fighting with different powers based on who's in control."
Arthias groaned in exasperation. So his F Rank skill was even worse than they realized. To use it, he'd have to be in control, and he wouldn't have access to any of the others' fighting force while doing so. And he doubted being level one was a good sign, considering even a toddler could be higher here.
"So how fucked are we, Yami? Do we have any chances? I know we can swap control faster than we let on, but if we're in a fight, we're going to need teamwork and well..."
Arthias looked around the control room at the others. None of them really ever worked together before, usually only inputting knowledge when needed, but saving advice for using that knowledge well to themselves. They didn't hate each other much, well, except for hating Joshua a lot, but they didn't exactly like each other either. Yami was the source code for all of them, and he wasn't a very good model.
"Yeah, no shit. Starting to regret bragging so much to that bitch. But we know I have little aside from my pride. Ahh fuck it. Let's at least go over our abilities. The basic knowledge we have should give you each knowledge of your ability specifically. For example, my Darkness Control allows me to do different things with a type of elemental magic here, obviously of the Dark Element. At Rank F, I can cause temporary blindness on a target for a few seconds. Useful, but not everything on this world relies solely on sight. Rank E lets me also shroud myself in dark areas, but with all this sunlight around it's very limited. Rank D lets me use shadows to bind beings with shadowy tendrils, but sufficient physical strength can snap those easily. Wild animals and physically inclined beings won't be much bothered by them. And finally, the Rank C of my ability lets me actually do something useful, as I can manipulate dead bodies by sending my shadow into them. Though it does put our body at risk since my consciousness also goes into them. I guess at least one of you can take over then, should we manage to kill anything in the first place. Probably an unexpected boon they didn't think of, since it seems mental problems like ours are unique here. Alright Josh, explain your ability."
"Oh, uh, right. Um... I have the Low Presence power, at E Rank. It um, allows me to not be felt by lower intelligence beings at Rank F. I can basically walk sneak up on dumb things easier, if I don't make noise. At E Rank, I can also be perceived as lower threat than I might otherwise be. But I mean, considering it has no combat ability right now... I'm not really threatening anyway, aha..."
"Hmph. So we can still get close to a target. It's not as useless as you used to be, and I'm going to need to strategize all we have anyways," Yami muttered as he was thinking to himself. "Alright, what do you have again, Stryker?"
"Yeah, I got D Rank Weapon Learning. Mine's pretty straight forward, but also utterly useless right now. Mine's different in the sense that the basic ability only gets better with grade it seems, as I only passively increase our proficiency with weapons. I just do it faster at Rank D than E or F."
"Hmm, and without being able to equip anything... Fuck. We've got to change that, and fast. At least we'll get some sort of boost that not everyone has on this world. But now we have to figure out how to get the system to bond with us. Alright, what does your power grant you, Shane?"
"Hah, I got D Rank Politics. Not useful on beasts I'm afraid, as you might've already guessed. F Rank gives me a natural boost to my confidence when speaking with intelligent beings, while E Rank makes my words more impactful. Kinda like a boost to anything I'm trying to say. D Rank lets me focus that boost on lying to them easier, so they will trust me more."
"Alright, if we meet anything intelligent, guess you're our Ace in the Hole to dealing with them. Though if things get fucked, you're out fast without any combat power. Now, Kotushk, as the other C Rank power, I really hope we can rely on you in combat."
"Actually, yeah, I can be quite useful. F Rank Speed Boost already allows me to double my speed, though I get tired three times as fast. Rank E makes me four times as fast, and Rank D makes me tired only twice as fast. But Rank C not only makes me five times faster, but now I can actually withstand hitting something at that speed. The earlier ranks were only good at fleeing, because if I hit something, I'd have gone splat."
"Oh good, I can see that being useful with some of my own abilities already," Yami said, his eyes brightening a little bit. "Now for the elephant in the room. F Rank, huh Arthias?"
Arthias sighed. He checked out his instinctual knowledge of his power, dreading how bad it would actually be and... Wait. This was... Weird. He didn't have full knowledge of his ability? Why? Well, guess he had to tell Yami about it, but he wasn't going to be pleased with what he did know about it.
"Yeah, so, I'm pretty much screwed. Seems our powers give us our knowledge on them based on the general knowledge of this world's inhabitants. And considering the basic power of my ability is very weak, considered useless by the inhabitants, I don't even know what the second effect is. The first one is just that by point of contact, I absorb one HP per ten seconds from what I'm touching. The rest of my knowledge is covered in a fog I can't see through."
Yami looked at Arthias incredulously. Then the gears started spinning in his mind, and he cracked a devious grin. Arthias was confused, as he expected Yami to be annoyed, or even pissed at how weak his ability was.
"Yeah, that grin is never a good thing. You mind enlightening us on why you look so happy? I mean, my power is weak as hell, why do you look more pleased with mine when even Josh has better combat application?"
"Hahahaha, don't you see," Yami spoke while laughing heartily. "This is one of those events, you know. The big powerful being gives a weak power, but it hides something within. It's so bad, it's probably good."
"You really read too much bullshit, man. I checked what I could without a system to highlight basic knowledge, and I can tell that we barely have any HP anyways. One per ten seconds isn't going to be useful in a full on fight."
"You don't get it. It has to be a low drain because of that fogged out bit. I bet it activates under conditions no one in this world has tested yet. Like maybe based on how much you drain from a target, or how long you manage to drain a target. Maybe with how rough this world is, anyone with that power finds it worthless in a fight, but I'm sure we can figure something out. We need to find something to fight."
With those words, Yami motioned Arthias to give him control. It was time to hunt. Arthias left the chair, but he wasn't sure Yami should have so much faith in his ability. Draining one HP per every ten seconds? He just didn't see how that was very useful. Maybe if he had a higher rank of skill, but this just seemed like a waste to him.
Little did he know that thought process came from the general skill knowledge they'd been given. Based on the lack of this power's use, his views were biased in the same way the world's inhabitants viewed it.