Flying can be said to be throwing yourself at the ground and missing. Unfortunately, my aim is true. For the most part. The landscape is covered in evidence of my passing as I slammed, scuffed, dented, and made craters from my horrible flying. My space suit strong enough to protect me, but I definitely feel some bruises pretty much everywhere. But with each crash landing it hurt a little less.

  I haven't checked my status or any system messages, so it's likely my Environmental Adaptation again. Instead of stamina regen it's probably just making my body sturdier as it takes the damage. 'It might also increase my health regeneration as well.' I think to myself as I get out of the Yamcha pose I was lying in after what must have been the 30th crash landing.

  "I'm definitely getting tougher. It only took me like 2 minutes to get back up this time." I mutter as I appreciate the massive streak of upturned dirt and ruined plant life I had accidentally created. The first time I crashed I was down for around 20 minutes. Just trying to breathe. I did try walking after that but that got boring so I tried flying again.

  I call it flying but if a bird that could speak saw what I was doing to their natural art, they'd probably curse me out. I was less flying and more just throwing myself with telekinesis. It was working though, so I'm not going to stop. It's actually quite fun when you get used to the pain of the crashes. Like learning to ride a bike without the training wheels.

  Just when I was about to throw myself again, I noticed something odd. There was a road through some trees to my right. It was hard to see at first but now that I noticed it, there was definitely a road of some kind. It was made of dirt, but it was also way too wide to be a simple path through the woods.

  "Hell yeah! I must be close." I giggle like a mad man as I make my way over to it with the awkward walk my space suit forces me to do. Once I reach the road I look both ways. To the right it curves off into the woods and I lose sight of it after about 200 feet but to the left is a straight path leading to what I can only assume is a wall. It's pretty far away, but I should reach it in one final throw.

  I stand in the middle of the road, and begin my pre flight check.

  "Straight path, nothing above me, and nothing to stop me. Let's hope no one walks into my trajectory." I do some stretching, which is unnecessary but it feels right. Then with a flex of that weird muscle in my brain, lift my body off the ground and throw myself.

  My speed is slow at first thanks to the high gravity but it doesn't stop my acceleration completely. It only takes a moment for the trees to become blurs as I hurdle through the air. I don't know how fast I'm going as the system removed the speedometer after reaching the ship. The asshole.

  The wall is approaching quickly, so I try to slow myself down. Throwing is easy. It's the catching part where I fuck up. I had gotten a bit better at it after my many failures though, and I am able to slow down quite a bit. Not enough to stop myself from slamming into the wall but enough to make it more like I ran into it instead of driving 40 miles per hour into a tree.

  Laying on my back I get a good look at just how tall it is. 'It's gotta be like... 60 feet tall. Give or take 5 feet.' I muse as I just stare at the stone. It's one thing to see a ruin of a stone wall or castle. It's another thing entirely to see one in mint condition. I get up and press my gloved hand against the stone as I look at the way the rocks mesh together. The wall isn't made of brick, but different shaped stones that somehow perfectly align with each other. From large boulders the size of my entire body, to rocks the size of my finger.

  I hear some shuffling and I turn to my left where there happens to be a large wooden gate. '...and two guards.' I quickly realized that they just saw me pop out of the forest like some kind of demon and crash into the wall then stare at it. They were now staring at me in kind. One was halfway into a bite of what looks like a sandwich.

  While we have an impromptu staring contest, it gives me plenty of time to look at their bodies. Humanoid, different shades of red skin, very small tusks on the bottom and top, one singular eye ball, and 20 feet tall with dented but obviously cared for metal armor. It's like an Orc, Cyclops, and an Oni were combined into one species. Despite being very tall, they're actually quite thin.

  After 5 or so awkward seconds, the one on the left with the sandwich finishes his bite and chews while the other one grabs a spear and tries to poke me with the wood end. The poker talks to the other one in a not so quiet whisper but he just shakes his head. They talk for a bit while I dodge the poking. Which isn't hard as he's not really trying to touch me.

  "-ays it's a new born. Plenty of weird creatures on this new world. Think someone will want to study it? Might give us some money if we catch it." The pokers deep rumbling voice even at a whisper is translated into perfect English, surprisingly losing the deep voice in the translation and sounding more like some guy from Australia.

  "Doubt you could. You see how fast it came out of the wood? I'd reckon that you would fall flat on your face. You have the dexterity of a drunken oaf while sober, and could be thought to be brain damaged while drunk." The sandwich eater teases with a remarkably feminine sounding voice. 'I suppose they could be a woman? That or they're just girly. Not like I could tell.' I muse as I stare up at them.

  Now that I can understand them, I can also read the sign next to the gate. 'Welcome to Ooploop!'

  'Ooploop? Are you for real right now? Like actually? Ooploop.' I sigh at the dumb name.

  'Might as well get this over with.' I remove my helmet, suddenly remembering my awful appearance as I catch a glimpse in the visor but ignore it as embarrassment floods me.

  "Hello, do you think I could get a bath here? Maybe a job?" I ask as they both return to staring at me.

  ...and stare at me.

  'I'm getting sick of this shit man.' I sigh.

  "Hello? Did you hear me?" I ask the two giant guards, speaking a bit louder this time.

  "Uh, yeah, we heard you. I'm pretty sure infants don't speak though? What are you?" Spear poker asks me while the sandwich eater simply goes back to their meal while observing.

  "Human. Kinda new around here. Well, new to the universe. Can I come inside and get a bath and maybe a job?" I ask again, feeling irritated that this is the second time I've been stared at. 'For being aliens, they aren't used to other species for some reason.' I ponder while waiting for a response.

  "I guess so? Do you want to take it-him inside Poli?" Spear man asks his coworker.

  "Fuck off Keji, I'm on break. You take him." Poli responds.

  "Fine. What kind of job did you have in mind?" Keji the spear wielder asks me.

  "I was thinking of becoming an adventurer. Hunting monsters and the like." I answer confidently. We walk inside the walls and I can see a town further in. There's a massive gap for farmland in between the town and the wall.

  "Riiiigghtt, well that's not happening. You need to be level 15 at least to sign up. So, maybe 14 more years for you?"

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  "Wait, are levels corresponding to age here?" I realize that now, since I would lose the Baby Mode title at level 5. So it would be like growing up wouldn't it?

  "Yeah? It takes roughly a year to level up. So level and age are pretty much one in the same."

  "What if someone is 35 and level one? Or level 30 at age 13?"

  "That doesn't happen and can't happen. It's impossible. The System makes it so every level takes a year to earn for everyone." Keji is more helpful than the system with this kind of info. Though I never asked it. This also makes me even more weird. Since I'm level one at 35, and it most certainly took much less than a year to level up.

  'Less than 1 day actually.' I'll have to keep that to myself. 'Wait...That's not possible. They can see my level can't they? Shit.'

  "Then what can I do? I don't want to be homeless." I ask Keji.

  "I don't know of any places hiring infants. I'm taking you to the orphanage."

  "No. I don't think that'll work." I stop walking. "I refuse to go to an orphanage. I just need a way to earn some money so I can pay for a bath, food, shelter and the like."

  "Well, like I said, that's not possible. No one is going to hire an infant." Keji says while looking like someone already tired of dealing with a toddler.

  "Then I'll do freelance. I'll hunt monsters myself and sell it to whoever wants it." I am most definitely not acting like a toddler. I'm a grown ass man and I will not be put with a bunch of kids.

  "You're an infant." Keji speaks blandly.

  "Then could I prove myself somehow? I bet I could take on a monster." If I use my telekinesis, I could probably easily fight a monster.

  "Infants can't enter combat. That's a System Rule. Even if you somehow managed to kill something you wouldn't get any XP as you can't enter combat."

  "What about the debuff they'd get from fighting me?"

  "Monsters don't have the smarts to know about that and won't care. You'd still get eaten and once you die the debuff ends. The debuff is for others to help you easier by making the people who would fight a baby weaker." Keji is giving me a rather blank faced look. Probably annoyed with me. Hard to tell with his one eyed face.

  "Couldn't I just do farm work or something?"

  "No."

  "Then I'm going back into the forest." I put my helmet back on.

  "...Fine. Be that way, I won't stop you. I won't help you either if you suddenly get attacked by a monster." Keji says with a sigh. I know what he's doing though. He's trying to reverse psychology me into staying. A good trick to use on a toddler but I'm not one those.

  "See you later Keji." I say, and then dramatically lift myself into the air. Keji's one eye bulges as he guffaws at me. Then I toss myself backwards and up. Thankfully I make it over the wall, but just barely as my boots scrape the lip.

  'Well shit.... now what do I do?' I think to myself as I hurdle much higher than I've previously gone. I keep the height as best I can, looking for a stream. 'Those survival videos always say to get water first.'

  It takes about 10 minutes but I find a stream and I land, roughly, next to it. I'm not that far from... Ooploop... either. I can't see it but it's nothing some flight can't find. Getting back up from my fall, I remove my helmet and test the water.

  "Fresh. At least it tastes like it's fresh. System, with Environmental Adaptation do I have to worry about getting sick or parasites from the water?" I ask the system.

  "No. You could drink almost anything and get hydration from it if you drink enough of it." The grating noise that is it's voice speaks back to me.

  "Great. Show me my quests." My eye twitches as I contain my rancid feelings attached to the voices origin.

  "...That's it? System, how do I get more quests?"

  "Additional quests will be issued when you finish the current list."

  'Fuck. God damn it. Just great man. 7 days of doing fuck all. Guess I'll train.' I huff in annoyance and dip my head into the water. I clean my nasty face and then drink a bunch of water. It doesn't taste any different, so I'll just have faith that my EA skill will take care of it.

  Using my telekinesis, I construct a rough base out of rocks and dead wood. Then once I have a place safe from rain, I start training my telekinesis to figure out it's limit.

  First was a rock the size of my torso. It was lifted with relative ease, and there's not much feedback at all. Just the slightest strain on that weird muscle in my skull. I make it orbit me for a bit. It turns out, controlling something while remaining still is pretty easy. I can do some complex maneuvers with the rock that I can't do with my body. I can spin it while it orbits me, which is 2 forces I'm putting on it.

  One feels internal and the other external. The spinning feels like I'm touching something in the rock and the orbiting is like I'm just holding onto the rock. 'Or maybe... Some kind of sphere that is around the rock...' It's an odd feeling. Having complete control over an object and not feel it like at all. I make it orbit faster. Then faster. The speed continues to build as it becomes nothing more than a grey line in my sight. Hardly even noticeable. The wind has built up as well but it's not that bad.

  Deciding it's reached enough speed, I let it go while aiming at a tree. There's an odd feeling, like a phantom touch like I'm throwing a baseball with an arm I don't have. Then the boulder crashed into a tree going so fast I don't even see it move, The explosive sound like thunder. The grey blurry line was there then the next moment it was just gone. The tree I had aimed at was also, now gone. Well the stump of horribly ripped and torn wood is there but it was smoldering from the friction.

  Looking behind the stump I see the downed tree and several small rocks. 'Did the spinning shatter it, or did the contact?' I know if you spin something fast enough it shatters, but I have no idea if that's what happened. I can't feel anything with the strange mental phantom hand.

  Deciding that this is interesting and needs testing, I get another big rock and spin it. Spinning it until it's more of a blurry sphere than an odd shaped rock only takes 8 seconds. I keep accelerating it of course, but nothing seems to be happening. After about a minute of spinning it at insane speeds, I slow the spinning.

  "Alright that's pretty fuckin' cool." I mutter as the rock is now a collection of several smaller rocks. I can still move them around as if it was one rock easily. Then I tried to focus one of the rocks out of the pack. It worked and I was holding 2 'separate' things with my mind.

  'How many of these hands can I use?' I muse as I split another rock from the collection. Then another. Soon I was holding 15 individual rocks.

  "Does the skill create a link for every rock? Is there no limit?" I continue to speak to myself as I set these rocks to spin as well. It took more of a mental effort but it wasn't all that much harder. Then once they were moving fast enough in an orbit around me to look like 15 rings around a planet, I tossed them all at once. There was that phantom arm feeling again, but this time multiplied by 15 for each rock. I had aimed at one singular spot for all of them, so they ended up colliding together just before the targeted tree. They still hit and it decimated the wood, but I felt tired.

  For a split second before my regeneration brought the energy back into me. 'Well damn, I'm kind of a siege weapon.' A smile spreads across my face as idea after idea fills my mind on how I can further use this.

  "First, limitation testing." More muttering as my smile grows wider. I grasp out with my mental arm and wrap my fingers around a tree. I try to lift it but it doesn't move. I can feel something though, so I know I have grabbed something. I still can't feel things like texture or weight, but the mental flexing is there. Before I can put more mental hands on the tree, I get another idea.

  'Couldn't I just... Make the hand bigger?' As I thought, the mental feeling increases then decreases. The feeling that I'm holding something goes from barely touching it, to grasping a can, to finally holding a pencil. Then with a mental tug much stronger and much more straining, the tree is ripped out of the ground. Roots and all.

  There are black spots in my vision as I collapse to my knees and breathe hard, my smile faltering. However, The tree remains in my mental hand. The smile returns strong as I struggle to look up at the floating tree. It's a bit smaller than the other massive trees, but it's still around 30 feet tall.

  "HA~! Hehe, oh lord." I chuckle and quickly run out of breathe again. I sit there and breathe for a bit, just merely holding the damn thing is enough to tire me out. 'If my regen wasn't so high, I'd probably pass out.' I hold on to the tree, as I have something to test. 'My telekinesis is a physical trait, so doesn't that mean I can train it like a muscle? And then shouldn't my EA skill make it grow stronger faster, like it did when I got used to the gravity?'

  I spent 5 minutes just holding it up in the air and breathing while laying on my side. Too tired to stand. Slowly, ever so slowly, it got easier. I could breathe a bit better. The dark spots in my vision lessened, and the mental strain got weaker. The tree remained in the air though, so it wasn't because I was losing my grip on it. No, my EA skill was making me stronger as I worked that hidden muscle.

  I let the tree down gently, laying it on it's side. Almost immediately, my stamina is restored to full. I'm mentally exhausted though. Pretty much wiped out from the workout, but having enough energy to move, I make my way to my rock and dirt hut. 'It's more like a hole in the ground but whatever.' I crawl inside and close my eyes despite the sun being out still.