"Of course, I trust you, gramps, it just wasn't the right time to e about them since I would've had to tell you of my dream that we'll get to after I tell you how I've e to possess my abilities."

  "Go on, I'm listening." He responded, instantly dropping his act.

  "You know how the video games you've pyed with us in the past give your character a window that you use to increase your character's strength, well I possess a simir window that allows me to do the same."

  Whilst my gramps was standing there stunned, Alid I could literally see the gears ing in his mind, so we patiently waited for him to e back to reality. The moment he was done processing the absurd statement I had made, I reacquired his attention and tinued on to expity-gritty details.

  "The thing I have is called a system, and this system lets me pull up a holographic system window whenever I want at will that no one else but myself see. Through that holographidow, I avigate several tabs that dispy a variety of information depending oab."

  "What kind of tabs does it possess?"

  "To start, it has a status tab that dispys all of my stats, such as my level, health, and stamina. Though that is not all, in addition to those, it also dispys my attributes, skills, perks, and a bunch of other information."

  "Going into further detail, my attributes enpass strength, agility, endurance, intelligence, perception, charisma, and luck. All of which be improved through training and use, luck being the only exception. That sole attribute is more i and only be improved via leveling up, quests rewards, and other such things."

  "As for skills, they include ballistic ons, energy ons, explosives, heavy ons, leadership, lockpick, medie, melee ons, piloting, repair, sce, speech, stealth, survival, trade, and unarmed."

  "Every single one of those skills be improved, just like my attributes, with the same methods. Along with those methods, they also be improved through reading and learning from books taining new information, which is one of the main reasons why I read as much as I do."

  "So what does increasing your skills do for you, exactly?"

  "Increasing my skills does a few things for me. First off, it impnts new information and the relevant experience regarding the skill into my memory every time it increases. My bat skills provide the same effect, but in addition to that effect, my damage with the relevant ons or means of bat they're associated with is raised by 0.25% per point."

  "My perks also be from them increasing too, which is where I get my unique abilities from."

  "Like the ones you showed me earlier?"

  "Yes, exactly. I normally get them through level-ups however, they be obtained in other ways. An example of that would be quests."

  "Iing. I've never heard or seen anything like this before, not on the numerous years I've spent traveling and expl the wastend. That system of yours, if utilized properly, could allow you to bee one of, if not the greatest, power in the wastend, kid."

  "Right." I responded with a bit of a smirk.

  "Along with all that reading, training, and w out you do daily, I could see you achieving that some day... Wait a minute, you're actually pnning on doing that, aren't you, you little shit?"

  Looks like my gramps was able to put two and two together, about damn time.

  "Hahaha, you got me. Yeah, that's pretty much what I pn to do, although irely. There's a bit more to it than just that, but we'll e back to that dream of mine and the goals I wish to achieve one day whe through the rest of the system details."

  "Fine, but we'll be having a long talk, a very long talk regarding this goal of yours when you're done expining your system's details." He said seriously while throwing a stern look my way.

  "That was already part of the pn."

  "Now, tinuing with the system expnation from where we left off, we've pretty much covered the status tab, so we'll move to the items tab and cover it briefly. There isn't too much to say about this one because it just lists off what items I own and what gear I'm carrying and have equipped. My gear is listed in my status too, by the way. Moving onto the quest tab , this tab is simir to the st and only really dispys informatiarding what quests I have in progress and pleted."

  "The map tab is the final tab I have on the system window and currently it only shows Uy 7 and the local locations within I've visited in the past. That said, I see numerous other loarked spread all across the map when I zoom out to the rest of the phat I've discovered the whereabouts of from my many years of reading. But as ht now, they are all bnked out because, as I stated, moments ago I've yet to ever visit any of them."

  "Alright, that does it for the system. You have any questions, old man?"

  "Nope, not a one." My gramps responded curtly before quickly dragging both myself and Alice back to the living room to have me spill the beans on those life goals of mine.

  After gettied with Alice seated by my side and my grandfather across from us, I opened my mouth and began. "As you figured out, one of my goals is to bee the stro power in the wastend. However, that doesn't fully enpass the goals I've set out for myself, what I truly wish to do iure is to quer the p in its ey, uhe human rader one banner, restore society, and bee the de faber oro being on the phat's what I dream of aplishing one day."

  "Those are quite some lofty goals you have there. How do you pn on aplishing all that? Even with that system of yours, it will take innumerable years of pnning and accumution of massive amounts of resources as well as mao even put you on the same level as the major powers that exist out in the wastend. So again, how do you pn on aplishing all that?" He asked me while fog his full attention on me, more than ready to scrutinize and dismantle whatever I was about to say.

  As the old man was exerting a sort of immaterial pressure on me, something he likely obtained from his many, many years of killing and adventuring throughout the wastend, I answered him steadfastly. "That they are, and you are correct. Even with my system, it would still take an enormous amount of effort over decades to aplish what I dream of doing. But now that you've been made aware of my system and its abilities, I'm sure you uand just how powerful it could make me iure if taken advantage of."

  "I do."

  "So let me ask you this, what would you say my odds would be if I had a photographic memory and had spent at least the st nine or so years accumuting knowledge to the point where there is only a small bit left I o learn? Alongside that shit ton of learning, I've been training my skills with my oh-so-loving grandpa nearly every day nonstop for years on end, building up my physique, agility, endurance, and strength while also getting ready to move on to the step in my pn. What would you say my odds are, then?"

  "Better, but still not enough to where I'm happy. Let me hear about the step in your pn, and maybe I'll ge my mind."

  "Sure, that step is acquiring a pce that will allow me to start accumuting resources and manufacturing the supplies I'll need for my trip into the wastend."

  "As to what kind of supplies I have in mind, they include but are not limited to ons for the various sarios I may or may not enter out there, hefty full body armor to protect me from small pistol rounds ter caliber rifle rounds, many kinds s and medies for all sorts of situations, more than a semi-truck load of ammo and, robots of my own design and programming that will make up the bulk of my force."

  "Adding on to that further, two of the designs are human-like in terms of shape, hehey'll be able to use any on a human and those too heavy and unwieldy for them. Which will increase my ability to handle a rger variety of eypes and situations with them. I even have the designs on hand if you want to verify their capabilities."

  "Sounds like you've prepared for many situations you'll enter out there and yeah, bring them to me. I want to see what you've e up with."

  Following Gramp's request to view my designs, I got up ao my room before returning shortly with a stack of physical design blueprints and my ptop, the tter of which tained a copy of the programming and the digital blueprints.

  "Here they are." I said, while handing him the stack of designs.

  While he was looking through them, I booted up my ptop, logged in, and started up the simutiram I designed way back to fiuhe artificial intelligence programming. Once I had everything ready, I waited patiently for him to finish looking through the designs.

  "I'm not going to lie kid, robotics isly my specialty, so I don't know much of what I'm looking at. However, from what I see, they seem legit and their armaments look impressive, especially this crusader you designed." He said, pointing at the most heavily armed robot design I have had cooked up so far.

  "Yeah, that's my pride and jht there. The crusader is a heavily modified sehat I turned into a bipedal robot. I'm quite happy with how it turned out."