Firm: Opal’s Story

1.Age

The first System message told us how to open our status. One of the first things strange you would have noticed as a human like me, is the Age displayed there. I’ve seen numbers ranging from 12 to 1655, and this has led most people to believe it’s randomly assigned. Mine is 632, so I guess you could call me an old hag.

There are a few things that have led me to believe that it’s not random at all, but a sort of indicator of survival chance.

First: The old, infirm, obese, and weak all have generally lower numbers. The 12 listed in the age range above was from an old man who died in his bed just a weak after telling me. Younger children also have lower numbers, but not their actual ages, with one child having 1201. The name of this child will be excluded from these notes for privacy concerns, but he seems more active than the other children his age, leading me to believe it contributes to his higher Age number.

Second: Intelligent, fit and cautious people tend to have higher numbers. The 1655 previously mentioned was actually from Richard, a strong, healthy and scheming man. He died months ago, so Age can’t be directly linked to actual success, just chance of survival.

Third: Non-human races such as elves also receive larger numbers when they are born. I believe this is due to their genetic memories and ability to grow to adulthood within a day or two. This gives them a higher survival chance, and the hidden bonuses to their race also contribute. Conversely, I believe that human children with no genetic memories or boosted growth have lower numbers. I can’t confirm this yet, since all children born since the start of the apocalypse are still to young to talk. My own child is a good example of this.

My own number of 632 reflects my intelligence, health and temperament being above average. I believe the only reason I don’t have a number over 1000 is due to my pregnancy when the System first showed up.

What I believe to be the biggest informational flaw in my theory is the Age of Opal. She has a displayed Age of 22 now, and is probably the hardest to kill person or thing I have ever encountered. Perhaps the system took into account her naivety and trusting nature, seeing them as poor traits for survival? Nonetheless, her and the fact that everyone’s displayed Age went up at the start of the new year makes me question my hypothesis.

These are in no way solid proof for my suspicions on Age, but I will update this as I get a wider array of information.

2.Biology

The second thing I personally found outrageously inconsistent after the System’s arrival is human anatomy and biology. If you cut me I still bleed, and if you poison me I still die… well I don’t because I have a skill that prevents it. It’s pretty common in our new life to find examples like this. Our bodies seem to work like they should, but weaknesses and flaws can just be turned off. Some of my observations are as follows.

Cancer: Cancer is no longer in anyone who had the disease before the System first arrived. I have checked corpses of those in my hometown I was acquainted with, and even got permission to cut open and examine a still alive woman who used to have breast cancer. I was helped by 3 healers to make sure the woman maintained high Health values during the procedure. My suspicion is that the disease was eliminated with how Health regeneration works in our new world. Cancer is seen as a flaw not brought about by a skill or something similar, and is simply healed over time. Any future cancerous cells fixed before they can cause any issues.

Aging: It has been less than two years with the System as I write this, and already the elderly who have survived this long are starting to age down in a way. They’re bones are regenerating, their minds are sharpening, and their sagged skin and wrinkles are disappearing. I believe this also to be caused by Health regeneration and how it seems indiscriminate in its fixing of flaws. Those elderly with higher tiers and thus higher regeneration have seen faster results. I can’t be certain, but I don’t believe humans can die of old age any longer. Old age of course just being the term we put to the breakdown of the body associated with advanced ages. It hasn’t been long enough to make a solid conclusion on my hypothesis, and it’s possible the System will limit lifespans in some other way.

Death: Someone simply dies when their Health reaches zero. People have weaknesses that can make the shift instant of course, but for any non-instant death one can survive anything with quick enough healing. I had my suspicions for a while, but what finally sealed my conclusion was someone I won’t name for secrecy. This person has an anatomy that allows them to take lethal wounds with non-lethal results to their Health, even losing their head at one point. I believe this means if you can get skills to eliminate instant fatality, you can become immortal in every sense of the word given quick enough healing.

Undeath: I have taken up the starting class of Necromancer and with it found another anomaly with biology, but this one effects all animal, monsters and Players that I’ve studied. With the right skills, you can simply ignore a bodies functions completely. A human that died from a hole in the chest can stand up as a zombie, and strangely, once reanimated, the hole isn’t seen as a flaw for the monster’s Health pool. This means the hole will remain, and the now undead can retain full Health. This goes back to my notes on Death, Aging, and Cancer, with Undead simply being given a new normal for their body. It’s strange that a zombie’s chest hole isn’t fixed, but cancer that someone had before the system is.

Magic: I call it magic because it seems fitting for all the strange things I can’t explain. There is no reason that I can tell with my eyes, for people to heal quickly, have harder skin, or throw fireballs. I’ve gotten permission from living people to check some of their bodies, and nothing is out of place or changed. This holds true for the corpses I’ve gone through more thoroughly as well. For instance, those with the skill Firm take less damage and their skin is harder to pierce with any means. Looking at their skin, I can see nothing different from my own where there should be at least some signs other than the effect the skill gives. Perhaps I could find more with a microscope, but they are among the tech from before the apocalypse that simply doesn’t work anymore. Perhaps I’ll make a section listing everything that doesn’t work for seemingly no reason in a future note.

Races: Human’s aren’t alone in the world anymore, and many new so called Player races have been discovered. The strange thing about their anatomy is that there isn’t anything strange about it. An elf has human organs and other parts, just with longer pointy ears. All the abilities they have nature and bows is simply given by skills and has no outward indicator. The same applies to the others I’ve managed to check as well, the most notable being Angels. They are completely human, just with a bird’s wings seemingly natural on their backs. They don’t have hollow or airy bones like a bird would have to help them fly, and I don’t believe they could fly without the previous mentioned Magic. Player Hounds are similar, in that they have heightened sense of smell, but their noses and glands can’t be distinguished from a human’s. The Player races seem to be human with other things magically added with no concern for how the actual biology would work.

Pregnancy: Pregnancy makes no sense in the post apocalypse world, being almost completely covered by the previously mentioned Magic stuff. For starters Human children grow in a womb at a normal rate, but High Humans, who benefit from genetic memories like the non-human races, only take a day. This is similar to most of the known monster born races. I had the opportunity to study the corpse of a pregnant woman that died, and there was simply no baby inside her once I checked. That contrasts to living pregnant women, except for one exception who will be unnamed for privacy. Living women actually have something at least inside of them during pregnancy, with the kicks you would expect from a growing fetus and even heartbeats. This makes it all the more strange when women give birth to upwards of 10-20 normal sized children at once. They simply don’t have enough room inside of them for the babies they expel. I can attest to this fact personally, as I have partaken in childbirth where I gave birth to 17 children over a couple hours. All of them ended up adorable with normal sizes and weights. From my many observations, and help from the previously mentioned exception, I can make a guess that the outward signs of internal movement and heartbeat are faked by the System somehow.

In conclusion, I have no solid theory on what could be causing all of this or even how most of it works. This is a field I will continue to research on my own, and hopefully find like minded individuals as we make more connections, so the discoveries can be made more quickly.

3.Memories

Mentioned in the previous articles are the genetic memories of the Player races. At face value, these are memories inherited from their parents and ancestors used to better facilitate survival. These memories usually have more combat and survival information, shirking things like the arts and sciences. This would give them a huge head start over any normal human children who must be taught everything. There are some flaws I’ve observed though with this basic understanding.

First: The newly born individuals are often confident in their memories, and it’s difficult to teach them new skills or have them study. This would be fine if they were in the wild fighting monsters daily, but handicaps them when trying to learn new lessons. This leads many of them to be taken advantage of by my fellow humans who simply see easy targets for old scams. If we can get past this period of violence and war-like world quests, I believe establishing proper education will be important for everyone.

Second: I only have a basic knowledge of how genetic memories worked in species before the System, but I believe the term genetic memory doesn’t fit. It should perhaps be called magical memory. The amount of actual memories is shocking, even if they seem strangely tailored to leave out certain specifics. Like how do you have memories of a great ancestor who reached the 7^th tier when elves just started being born a little over a year ago? Other things are just vague notions not to touch something, or how to hold a bow correctly. It’s strangely inconsistent, and I believe the System is altering the memories for some reason. Perhaps having to do with my thoughts on our current situation in totality, but I’ll add more on that at a later date.

Third: Shockingly, after questioning many people, I’ve come to the conclusion that the memories don’t come from their parents at all. Children will have memories of skills and abilities that their parents have nothing for. The memories of ancestors don’t line up with someones parents either, one having a long line of bow users, while another has always been a line of builders. Some of this could be thought of as different ancestors being selected by the System for remembering, if it weren’t for the first generation. It’s a term used for those children first to come directly from the mating of a monster and a human. How did they get memories of elf ancestors from either an orc or a human? This and the previous entry have led me to hypothesize that the memories are simply fabricated completely by the System, and not altered at all.

I know too little to come to a conclusion though, so this section has a lot of personal speculation that’s probably riddled with biases. I never studied memories and haven’t met another Player who did pre-System. If it weren’t for my thoughts on future education, I may have left this section out completely. Perhaps someone else with more specialized knowledge can take up this field, since I plan on dropping it to focus on biology after the system.