Chapter 2: Research I (Patreon)

When I woke up the following day, I started thinking about everything that had happened to me. At first, I thought maybe I had imagined everything and was losing my mind, but I couldn't argue with the feeling of the new energy in my body. It was unmistakable. I needed more information to understand my situation better, and the best place to look for it was on the internet. Checking my phone, I saw it was fine again, but the battery was critically low.

A Google search for "Travelers' Gate" and "Gate Traveler" yielded some strange results. The first ten pages on Google were all about The Traveler's Gate Trilogy. I read the blurb, hoping to find something helpful, but I found no connection between my experience and what the blurb described.

Oh well, keep looking.

On Spotify, I found a song named Gate Traveler and listened to it, hoping for some clue, but it was just another dead end. The rest of the results were equally unhelpful: garage door automation, online tour sales, and even T-shirts on Amazon with that inscription. It was all a jumble of unrelated information, a frustrating dead end.

"Gate to Another World" was no better. On Goodreads, I found a list of novels on this subject and spent hours reading the synopses of each book, but I found nothing useful. A mention of legends appeared on page twenty-something of my Google search. I read some old legends, hoping for something useful, but finding nothing.

What now?

Remembering the terms 'class,' 'level 1', and 'stat points,' I did a new search. The results were a mix of learning institutions and gaming forums. The thought of delving into gaming discussions was embarrassing, but I was alone in the hotel room, and I needed answers. I was determined to push through, no matter how unconventional the source was. I read discussions between people about the merits of different classes in games or how to progress a class in this game or that, but I still found nothing helpful for my situation.

After a few pages, I got results for books in a genre I had never heard of: LitRPG. Intrigued, I turned to Wikipedia for an explanation. There was an actual mention of class levels and stats for attributes. This aligned with my personal experience, making it a promising line of research. Following the general explanation and history section, I found a section named Examples, which included a list of eight English book series. Even though I tried searching on Google for more information, those books sounded the best. Before I continued searching, I decided to check out those books and see if they could really help me.

The first series involved a guy climbing a tower. It was well-written and engaging, but it was too different from my circumstances and didn't help me understand. I dropped it after a couple of chapters.

The second series takes place in an online game. Moving on.

Instead of reading the third book, I read the blurb. It talked about a dungeon and cultivation. Both terms were unfamiliar to me and didn't seem relevant to my case, so I put the book down.

The fourth one had a dungeon in its name. Moving on.

The fifth one was closer to what I needed; the guy was yanked to another world. There were no class levels, stat points, or ability points, but hey, at least the story was set in another world. I read the entire book and enjoyed it, but it still didn't help me.

Next series, still no levels.

Hmm, I need a different approach.

A new search on Google for "classes and levels" got a lot of results for forums and discussion groups. I ignored the many game forums and instead focused on the book forums. I gave reading some discussions a shot, but all the jargon and acronyms made no sense to me. Constantly googling the meaning of words or acronyms was a pain. I couldn't read a sentence without checking five times on Google. Reaching the conclusion that I was too much of a "noob" to use those forums, I continued searching on Google.

Hey, look at me; I'm using the correct jargon.

After scrolling down for a while, I finally started seeing some promising results. I stumbled upon a promising series, and the main character's name was also John—almost like it was meant to be.

As soon as I began reading, the MC got a spirit helper.

I wish I had a spirit helper, an AI, or something to help me navigate this strange situation.

Suddenly, I knew I couldn't. The realization made me freeze. I didn't guess—I knew. It felt like an innate knowledge that was simply there. After thinking it over, I deduced that the unexplainable knowledge was most likely from the Gate Traveler class. There was no other logical explanation for just knowing things out of the blue.

The next thing I discovered was the "Status Screen." Despite saying "Status Screen" a few times, nothing happened. I was pretty sure I had something like this—there was a mention of stat points, but I didn't know how to access it. I spent too much time searching on Google and those confusing forums, but finally found other names for this function.

Likewise, I checked, saying "Status"—nothing.

"Profile"—nothing.

"Character Sheet"—nothing.

I thought those words didn't work either.

Okay, next version. "My Status"—nothing.

"My Stats"—nothing.

"My Profile"—nothing.

"My Character Sheet"—nothing.

I tried all the options with "John's..." but still got nothing.

Annoyed, I growled, "How the hell am I supposed to figure out my information?"

Text started scrolling in front of my eyes.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Name: John Rue

Age: 37

Class: Gate Traveler Level 1

Gates to the next level: 0/3

Class Abilities

Conversion
Travelers' Archive
Identify

Stat points: 5

Ability points: 1

Health: 1550/1550

Mana: 3000/3000

Strength: 17

Agility: 15

Constitution: 10

Vitality: 21

Intelligence: 15

Wisdom: 10

Perception: 8

I spent a moment looking at it, processing all the information. While I was aware of its existence when I searched for it, it was a completely new experience to actually see it in front of me and realize that my life had transformed into a fantasy novel. I realized the new energy I was feeling was mana. It took me a few minutes to digest the fact that I had mana. Throughout my life, I have always approached things from an analytical perspective. I didn't even bother reading or watching popular fantasy stories like The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. But now I had mana. Me! Mana!

Sometimes, life is strange.

For now, I skipped the Abilities section and reviewed my stats. The stats seemed logical in some aspects, but puzzling in others. My strength was high, and it made sense; I was always strong. In medical school, I supplemented my scholarship by working as a mover on the weekends. Although I worked with guys as wide as I was tall, I could lift more than them without breaking a sweat. In addition, I was fast and knew it. My average jogging pace was like that of a sprinting athlete. Once, the track team coach saw me jogging, and since then, he has hounded me to join the team. My intelligence also made sense; I excelled academically without exerting much effort, but the origins of the other attributes remained puzzling.

My Constitution score was ten, which may seem high, but I didn't feel or appear exceptionally robust; I was of average height and lean. Vitality completely confused me; I didn't feel vital or energetic most of my life—all I wanted was to be left alone with a book. Wisdom, too, made little sense. I was good at everything academic, but bad at everything else. Understanding social cues was a challenge for me, and I often found it difficult to grasp people's intentions. Adapting to different circumstances was a struggle, and once I had made up my mind, it was exceedingly difficult for me to change it. So, how is this wisdom? Perception also made little sense; I had excellent eyesight and hearing, so why was it low compared to the others?

I put aside my confusion and continued reading, hoping that more information would help me understand better, but had to stop. As the story progressed, the MC had to fight stronger and stronger monsters, an idea that filled me with dread and apprehension from my perspective. I wanted to explore unknown places, meet interesting, friendly people, not fight monsters.

I found a new series that seemed promising and worth exploring further. The story presented the MCs being transported to another world, which was spread over ten different planets and involved stats and levels. They learned skills by performing the actions required for the skills, and that resonated with me. I Knew that this was the way it worked. Again, it was probably knowledge from my class; there was no other explanation for knowing such a specific thing. Another aspect I appreciated was their desire to fight monsters as a means of personal growth, rather than being forced into it by external factors, like in the previous book. This approach to gaining strength through voluntary challenges rather than forced combat eased my worries about facing terrifying creatures.

There was also a description of looking "inside" the body to examine the mana system. I tried to use my physical eyes, but was unsuccessful. However, by closing my eyes and focusing on the areas that tingled upon gate-crossing, I found it. It was more like a mental image based on feelings, but it had a "seeing" aspect; I could see the color. My mana system looked completely different from the description in the book, but it was there. I had three golden orbs with swirling energy inside them—in my head, behind my diaphragm, and in my navel—with thick golden lines going to all my extremities and thin golden lines branching off them to everywhere else in my body.

At this point, I stopped reading. The books were fun, but their purpose was research, and I had a good enough basic understanding to play with my "Profile" and examine my situation.