The Achievement [system].

Richards eyes slowly began showing him the blackened surroundings. He felt stiff – and even as his insane kinetic defense dropped slowly but surely his body remained restricted feeling. The ground – he was embedded slightly in the ground.

Slowly Richard extracted himself and crawled out of the crater he was laying in. Point blank – he had actually survived one of the blasts point blank. Fuck he was invincible wasn't he? Better lock that away before it gave him a big head. He should seal it in his right eye and start wearing a bandage…or maybe a eye patch? Richard could cosplay a pirate for a while. How long till people got bored of his arr's?

Turning Richard scanned the horizon trying to figure out what direction he needed to go. All around him craters lay – the grass had been seared and ripped off the ground in every direction and giant craters dug down to bedrock where every bomb had detonated.

"Fuck I miss my AI, where's my location services. What way's even north?" Richard spun eyeing the remnants of the storm on the horizon. Assuming it was mostly linear past this spot…his things should be that way? Was it worth trying to make himself a compass out of the stone around him? No, making an accurate one would take more time than he was willing to use. His memory wasn't even good enough to remember what direction the sun was in before.

Richard began to walk, pealing off bits of crud that had coated his entire body as stone clothing and whatever surface flesh he had had fused together.

Fresh skin revealed he was mostly naked, so other than cleaning off his arms, face and feet, Richard left most of the crud alone for now. What happened to James? Was he good?

Richard paused. Was James…good? Richard had been pretty certain of his own survival – at least 95% if not more…but what about James? James didn't have his defense…had he survived? Had Richard even considered his friend might not be able to deal with it?

He felt strange at the thought.

Richard's brain didn't really understand the concept of death. It never fully had. Obviously he knew what death was in a general sense – death was like deleting someone from existence…and he understood the concept of loss as not being able to interact with someone again well enough. But besides death being a permanent loss – one a bit stronger than someone just moving away…well he had never really understood the emotions behind it. What was the difference between someone moving countries and someone getting hit by a truck? Assume you can't keep in touch with the moved person either way.

It just didn't feel like it had as much weight as people liked to explain it did.

Even now he just felt…strange and empty? He felt empty wondering if his friend had been deleted. A bit tired if he was being fully honest.

…And a bit lost. Where the fuck was he anyways? It felt like he had been walking for hours…where was his built in clock? "Fuck I miss my AI." Richard sighed for the second time. The loss of James. The loss of his AI. Too very sad losses. AI was not nearly as bad – he could get a new one much easier than he could find a new best friend but – what was that?

Anywhere from a few minutes to an hour after he began walking, Richard noticed something in the sky – how could you even tell how long it had been without a nanosecond precise clock available at a moment's thought? How did any human survive without an AI? I mean sure they used to have phones but AI's were just so much better in every way.

The empty feeling began to fade as Richard recognized the figure. "Jamessssss" He called breaking into a jog and waving his hands wildly.

"James you glorious bastard am I ever glad to see you. Let's get our stuff and set up camp before it gets dark. I need a change of clothes."

…

Richard felt a wash of relief as his internal slot reconnected with his AI. It felt agonizing waiting the three seconds for it to boot – and then the three minutes for it to fully integrate once again.

The first thing he did as soon as tendrils reconnected to his brainstem and began sending information into the black box that was his brain was query it for his status.

It took a while to load and Richard needed to wait for a seemingly endless number of diagnostic messages to flick past before he got what he was looking for.

Richard opened a few breakdowns and read what his AI had to say. 18 inaccessible stats? Last he had checked there was only the one – codename fat stat – refined past his point of switching it. What had happened to the others? And really…was he already in the second tier? Was his aetheric weight already reaching that point? And how effective was 'weight' as a measurement considering his refined flesh barely added tier weight to him and yet supposedly boosted his stats by a whole 50%.

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Was his effective rank actually 4 after all? …considering the defensive calamity was rank 4 and survived a nuke and he just managed the same thing…maybe? His skill was doing some heavy lifting.

"Check out my gains" Richard laughed forwarding a summary of his results to his best friend. "Totals are bugged out after refinement but I'm doing reasonably well."

"One sec, let me check mine and I'll send you an update" James muttered his eyes beginning to flick around as he navigated mental windows like an old man. Richard recorded the clumsy AI navigation and sent it over with an old filter and some funny captions.

That's what friends were for.

"Come on, I know I remember Running stats being separate from leg muscle speed and channel-nerve transfer rate. Stupid AI can't even name half the monster stats consistently." James shook his hand vaguly at a point in the air before sinking deeper.

"This might take a bit".

---James---

James felt awful. There was a lingering nauseous feeling wafting back and forth across his body he was relatively confident could be called "radiation poisoning".

All semblance of his body having blood was gone – whatever the liquid that now filled his channels was, it was heavy and black like tar. James had to actively focus to rotate mana through his body and keep moving normally.

What would happen if he blacked out? Would his body keep working?

It was a terrifying thought.

And yet…he had to admit the gains were pretty good.

From the system.