"Oh God, that light!"

  I don't know how it's possible, but it's brighter out here then it was in that damn lighthouse Miss Adelika calls a room, or office or whatever. That initial flash of light was almost enough to melt my eyeballs.

  After I chose all my skills and spells, I just blinked and I was here. Uh, where is… here? I quickly rub the light spots out of my vision and open my eyes again. Now it's all coming into view, and… a bunch of trees and bushes.

  Great, I'm in the middle of nowhere. Just trees all around me, as far as the eye can see, which isn't very far. There's silence all around me except the rustling of branches in the wind, and when I focus a bit, running water nearby.

  Just before I head towards the sound, I'm interrupted by a different one. A rustling sound in the bushes nearby to my left. I pick up a small dead branch off the ground and toss it into the bushes. A pretty stupid move in hindsight.

  “Ggggrraaaaa!”

  Ah fuck! It's coming out of the bushes towards me!

  First thing I see is green skin, long pointed ears, and a long nose. Yeah, that's a goblin. Ok, maybe I can take it unarmed, it's only about the size of a child, about three feet or so, tall. In its right hand is a small sword.

  Wait, a weapon? Sweet.

  “Graa!”

  It charges at me, but I use my superior skills to... throw dirt in its face. I learned that trick from “Pocket Mon”. The goblin reels back and starts rubbing its eyes with its free hand. I take the opportunity to quickly run over it and grab the sword hilt. The hilt is a little too big for the goblins tiny hand, probably stolen or looted. Once I have a solid grip I kick the damn thing as hard as I can in the chest, and pull the short sword out of its hand as it falls backward. Once it hits the ground, I quickly move into position above it and bring the sword down.

  Hmm? I don't feel as bad as I thought I would.

  I thought I would feel bad after killing something but I'm already past it, and trying to use my Pocket Dimension spell. To my surprise it activates almost immediately. It looks like a 2d black hole with weird markings around the perimeter. It's inky black and bottomless. The goblin corpse looks like it's sinking into the abyss.

  ding

  Huh? Is that a notification sound?

  No time to think about it. I'm pretty sure that the goblin was a scout of some kind. Which means there are more that might show up. I start moving towards the water as quickly and as quietly as possible.

  After a few minutes, I make it to a clearing where I can see the river. It looks to be about 100 feet away

  Unfortunately, there's something else in the clearing. More goblins, a lot more. No time to count how many. I run at full speed to the river, jump in, and activate my Pocket Dimension again. I'm pretty sure I heard some arrows, and maybe even spells, hitting the ground behind me as I ran.

  While hiding underwater I find out that I can pull up a menu for everything that's in my Pocket Dimension. 1 goblin corpse, 228 liters of water, and 1 small loincloth. Gross. Does this world use the metric system? I've been seeing that a lot lately. Also, my storage fills up pretty fast since there are already 228 liters in there. Even the speed that this spell draws items in, might be useful for me.

  I swim towards the other side of the river, while gathering water using the portal. I'm keeping it open and at my side, while I swim. This is to make sure it's against the flow of water so I can avoid being pulled by the current the portal is generating.

  I wade, slowly, to the other side of the river with breath to spare. So I wait, for a few more seconds, until I get 2,000 liters of water. That'll have to do for now. Water is incompressible so if it's moving fast enough, or hitting something hard enough, it becomes a lethal weapon.

  Carefully, I poke my head out to breathe. There looks to be three types of goblins. Infantry, archers and mages. Pretty standard stuff. The ranged attackers are keeping their distance, but the infantry are already in the river, rushing towards me.

  Fuck!

  I'll have to deal with them now. No time to think. I step out of the water, and create another portal between me and the ranged goblins on the other side. I have a theory to test out and I hope it works. A volley of arrows, spells and small rocks are launched at me. All those attacks are "nonliving" right?

  I can't see what's behind my portal. I can only see the pure black darkness inside. This might not be practical, especially for multiple enemies, but I don't have much of a choice right now. I can't hear much either, because of the river flowing right next to me. Its loud sloshing is drowning out all other sounds. I might be screwed here.

  ding ding ding ding

  Huh? I can barely hear that notification sound ringing in my head. Wait, my menu. Everything from the attacks is being stored automatically. Yes, I knew it! I'm storing their ammo, while they are losing it. It's a battle of attrition then, for them. Not the others though.

  I think I saw 4 infantry just before I put up the portal. The second I see one of them move into view from behind, I'm going to strike.

  The moment arrives, surprisingly quickly, considering the strength of the river, and the small size of their legs.

  Ok then. Move the portal just enough to reveal the goblin and strike!

  “Argh!”

  The first stab didn't quite kill it so I stab it again just as it starts to swing at me. It finally falls after that, but then another takes its place. Rinse and repeat I guess.

  Stab! 2

  Stash! Stab! 3

  Just as I reach up to slash the fourth, it spits something at me. Unable to react in time to move my portal, it splashes against my neck.

  Argh! It hurts. It's stinging and burning immediately. Poison!

  Don't stop!

  Stab! Stab! Slash!

  Yes! After I take the fourth one down, I test another theory of mine.

  It works! I'm able to open up another portal to my Pocket Dimension, and gather up the bodies, while keeping the first one active.

  While I'm doing that though, a ranger goblin sneaks off to the side, and fires an arrow at me behind my portal shield. I'm not quick enough to dodge, even without the poison slowing me down, so it strikes me in my right shoulder.

  Argh! That hurts!

  I back up a little more until I'm next to a tree that's just inside the forest. I can see that the amount of items in my inventory is still going up, including… fire? That's so cool! It says I have .7 cubic meters of fire. I also have a bunch of rocks that they threw at me. I can probably use that for something too. Everything is a weapon when you can drop it all at once.

  I huddle next to the tree and wait them out, hoping they run out of mana, arrows and rocks soon, before the poison gets me. I don't think I'll have to wait long though, the speed of the item count notification is getting slower and slower. I have 24 rocks, 137 arrows, 3 swords and 2 wooden clubs, along with the water and fire. I'm ignoring the 5 loincloths.

  Once their attacks get slow enough, I decide it's time to see if I can change the size of my portal. Currently it's about 4 feet in diameter, so I want to see if I can shrink it down to 2 feet or less. I'm hoping I can use it as a shield. The ultimate shield, for ranged attacks.

  Huzzah! It works! With my little portal shield nothing can stop me! Except for sneak attacks.

  The time is now. I start to move in closer, while blocking the few arrows and rocks that are still flying at me. Now that I finally have a chance to survey everything, I can see how many are left.

  There are 3 mage gobies and 7 rangers. They're lined up on the other side of the river in 2 rows of 5. All the mages are out of mana, and some of the rangers are out of ammo. Perfect! I decide to use my own ranged attacks instead of wading over there to attack.

  I throw my sword at the one ranger that still has ammo, and pull another one out of my Pocket Dimension.

  "Aarrgh!"

  Damnit!

  The hilt hit it and bounced off! I'm not worried though, I have more. I'll send another one flying.

  This time, it buries itself in the ranger goblin's chest.

  Ugh. That wet thud wasn't pleasant to hear.

  Steadily I advance on them so, by this point, I'm almost into the river now, about 10 feet from them. Adelika said a few meters so, if my conversation is right, 1 more step is all I need.

  I take a huge leap forward, more than I need, but I want to make sure I get the ones in the back. Then I open up a portal large enough to cover all of them and release all the water I gathered from the river.

  A rushing sound, even louder than the river, floods my ears, then all those little goblins get thrown to the ground by the weight of the water. I dumped everything except the fire and one sword so that's got to be almost 5,000 pounds.

  Slam! They all die instantly.

  Oh… uh, nice! I guess the weight of all that water was enough, and the loincloths, of course.

  "Congratulations. You've now reached level 3. All of your stats have gone up"

  Huh?

  "Your spell, Pocket Dimension, has reached stage 2."

  Umm. Ok.

  You know what? Why is it that, in every Isekai, there's always some adorable, ethereal voice from an unseen cutie that we never get to meet?

  What a nice compliment

  Oh God!... Uh. Can you respond to me? That voice sounded slightly different though. It was quieter and less mechanical. Why do all these voices keep popping into my head, and then changing?

  "Um, hello?" There is no response. I guess she must be shy or something. Or maybe I'm hearing things. I… guess I'll move on then.

  After cleaning up all the bodies and pulling the arrow out of my arm, I had a bit of down time. I decided to study my character menu, and by doing so, I've discovered some interesting things.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Name: George Smith. Level: 3. Class: None.

  Health: 89/116 Mana: 48/60 Stamina: 93/108 Strength: 28 Magic Strength: 12 Intelligence: 40 Dexterity: 39 Speed: 37 Defense: 29 Magic Resistance: 18 Fire Resistance: 17 Poison Resistance: 20

  Spells: Pocket Dimension stage 2: A spell that creates a portal to another dimension for storage. Anything non-living can be stored inside. Max capacity is 2,000 cubic meters. The capacity, and mana cost, will increase with each level. 29% until stage 3.

  Interesting. I think the poison is gone. I don't feel it anymore, and I don't see it on the menu either. Goblin poison must not be that strong then. It's the perfect potency for a Game Exploiter, now that I mention it. Maybe I can find a few more then, to “help” me train and increase my stats.

  My intelligence, dexterity and speed are kinda high, and there's a stage percentage value for my spells. This must be my progress in learning and leveling up the spell. I can also interact with some of this menu, allowing me to open up a new tab of sorts, to see a full breakdown.

  In the spells tab I can see new Magic that I'm gaining access to. They're still only at stage 0, but the percentage until stage 1 already has a value for some of these, like Water Magic. That must be the way this game-like system calculates and displays all proficiencies, even before you have the spell.

  Nice!

  Miss Adelika said I only need knowledge and proficiency to unlock new Magic right? I know exactly which magic I need to learn first, Healing. It's been a while since my health and pre-med classes in high school, but I still remember most of it. At least I think so.

  Okay then, let's do it.

  I should be able to see any increase in proficiency while I'm trying to use or learn it. That means I can easily exploit the system just by watching the proficiency value while I practice. Righty-o then, that sounds perfectly broken.

  Right now, I can't see anything for healing magic at all. Which means it is most likely stage 0 at 0%. So, while I'm trying to heal this arrow wound, it should pop into existence with the increase in proficiency. Assuming I can do it right.

  I imagine restricting blood flow, cleaning the wound, creating a protein mesh-like structure using platelets, sending antibodies to the wound, and then closing the wound. Slowly, I got used to the feeling of mana flowing through me until the Magic itself finally triggered.

  Reconstruction Magic: stage 0: 3% until stage 1.

  Awesome! What a perfectly broke-... I mean, balanced system.

  Now I just need to keep it up until I fully unlock the spell. Should be easier now that I've gotten the ball rolling.

  1 hour later

  Congratulations. You've learned the spell, Reconstruction, in the new Magic tree Recovery. The speed of assisted Healing, cellular reconstruction and the Mana usage will increase with proficiency. Stage 1. 11% until stage 2.

  There's that voice again. It's just as cute yet mechanical as ever.

  "Hello?..... Thank you."

  Still nothing, huh?

  Whatever, I have more important things to deal with. I'm hungry and I need Mana.

  Luckily, those goblins had some dried fruits and meat in their pouches. I checked everything with Identify, and nothing is toxic. The dried fruits are called Dried Fola, and they regenerate Mana. So, after I finish eating everything, it's time to start training.

  Ok.

  Step 1: Grab a sword.

  Step 2: Cut myself with sword.

  Step 3: Heal with magic.

  Repeat step 2 and 3 until mana is gone.

  Only 6 heals then I'm done.

  Next objective; Ground Magic.

  No, it's not called earth magic. This isn't Earth. It's “Arth”.

  Step 1: Hit myself with a stone.

  Step 2: Heal wound while keeping dirt out of it.

  I'll do this unit I learn, or until it kills me.

  2 hours later

  Congratulations. You've learned the spell Rock Shot, in the new Magic tree. Ground Magic. The damage from this spell and its Mana usage will increase with proficiency.

  There it is!

  I'm almost out of MP and Mana recovery fruits too. I thought I wasn't going to make it, and it's starting to get dark.

  I'll have to make sure to Identify everything I come across to see if it's usable. Everything in this forest looks almost identical to my old world. There isn't much to take note of except the few plants and animals that have a strange color to them.

  These herbs, for instance, look almost like a Cannabis plant, but they're glowing slightly. That's pretty funny, ethereal looking weed that gives you Mana. They're called Cannoa, and they taste so bitter it's hard to swallow.

  Ugh. They taste sickly sweet with a hint of vinegar. Like that synthetic, medical sweetness that some laxatives have, but also sour. Gross. I have to wash my mouth out after that.

  After getting a drink from the river, I pause for a moment and look at myself. Still the same boring, average face, and brown hair. Yep, that's me. Even the dead expression is exactly the same.

  I wonder if I could've changed my appearance before I reincarnated. I'm tired of seeing the same face, although, I don't know what I would want my appearance to be instead, and I don't really care about it. I'm mostly concerned with the magic in this world and what I can do with it.

  Well, that and Cody.

  Hmm. I miss her already.

  I shake off the stabbing pain in my heart and press on. Right now, I need to call it a night. I can't think about those I left behind right now.

  Time to sleep.

  Thump, thump, crunch.

  What's that sound? I'm trying to sleep, wake me up later.

  Crunch!

  Is it getting closer? Must be Cody chewing on something. You silly dog. You're gonna have to wait until I get up.

  Err... wait. Oh, God. Why am I so filled with loss and pain? Oh yeah that's right. She's gone, or rather, I'm gone, and in the darkness of my turtle hole I dug for safety, dreaming of days gone. Poor Cody, I wonder how she's doing without me.

  Thump. Thump! THUMP!

  Uh. Oh shit. If that's not Cody, then who is it? Or what is it?

  It sounds like a group of creatures moving through the bushes next to the clearing I'm in. The occasional snarling makes me think it's goblins again, so I quickly break open the roof of my turtle hole and jump out. Everything must be put on hold, dreams, fantasies, mourning routines, everything.

  Out I go, and into a fighting stance. With a small portal shield in front of me and a sword I pull out of it in my left hand, I'm ready... Or so I thought.

  It wasn't a group of weak gobies, but instead, one big ass hobgoblin. About 7 feet tall and 3 feet wide, with a mean look in its eyes. Those eyes, as blue as my jeans are almost beautiful, if not for the snarling monster they sit comfortably inside of. Its ears are even bigger than the usual goblin's ears, which were already massive. Like a pair of flip flops sticking out its ugly head. The contrast here is striking.

  Okay. Stay calm.

  Pocket Dimension first.

  I try to drop a few small boulders on its head, before it has a chance to charge at me, but it dodges out of the way. Then, the monster launches itself straight towards me. I jump backwards and dump a couple thousand liters of water on it. That much water all at once can kill someone, but the hobgoblin was only knocked to the ground and received minimal damage.

  It simply gets pushed down, and tilts its head up towards me, unfazed.

  Fuck! Time to run!

  We both take off, with it just behind me, into the woods around the clearing. As I run, dodge, and dash around trees and bushes, barely avoiding the swift and powerful strikes of this monster, I'm gathering as many fallen trees as I can.

  There's a very large tree trunk on the ground a few yards away.

  Maybe I can hide behind it?

  Yes! Behind the massive log I go.

  Shing.

  Damnit. In one swing the tree was cut in half, cleanly. I avoided most of the attack, but not all. I'm injured badly. I can't stop to treat myself though.

  I'll have to act quickly.

  I open up the Pocket Dimension inside of his body, hoping a potential exploit works, then I dump out the swords and fire I have stored.

  “Aaarrghh!”

  Yes!

  He's “living” so the portal fazes through him, but the “nonliving” items I have stored can still be removed.

  Shing!

  Ahh! I barely managed to dodge his next swing. Damnit! I didn't hurt him enough to even slow him down. Maybe I can try it again?

  No! I don't like being this close to him. I'll have to get higher. He is far too big to be climbing trees after me, however, he can cut them down with one swing so I'll have to be fast.

  I know what to do.

  I'm going to lure this beast into position at the other end of the severed trunk. Get low, and pray this works.

  "Graah!" Shing.

  Yes! The hobgoblin swung upwards, cutting the trunk once more and sending it flying in the air.

  Activate Pocket Dimension.

  Beautiful! The entire trunk, thicker than me, is swallowed whole by the void of my portal.

  Shing.

  Argh! Damnit. It's ok. I'm ready. I leap up, to the trees, into a temporary safety, and climb high, as high as I can, as quickly as I can.

  Now. Open!

  Out it goes, the tree I tried to use as a shield, straight down. I have to be up high enough, I'm at least 50 feet above the powerful monster out for revenge or food, so please, work…

  "Graah!" Splat!... Thunk!

  Congratulations: You have reached level 6. All of your stats have increased.

  Congratulations; Your spell Pocket Dimension has increased to level 5.

  Congratulations; You have learned Spear, in the Magic Form Wood Magic. The damage this Spell will deal and its Mana usage will increase with proficiency. Stage 1. 8% until stage 2

  Oh, thank you, Miss Isekai-Menu voice. What a pleasant sound after that.

  Now it's time to heal, take a much needed break, and start my morning routine. Eat breakfast, refill my pocket dimension with water because I just used it all, and throw some other things in there as well.

  As I look for things to drop into storage, I'm also gathering fruits and herbs. You can never have too many.

  Eventually, I find a big boulder about 10 X 6 feet, and use magic to push it into a portal. That should come in handy, along with a few small fallen trees that I cut the branches off of. I'm keeping the branches too, of course, along with some dried ones I'm picking up off the ground. I'm probably going to need firewood later.

  After that, I decided to start working on my magic again. I already had stage 1 Water Magic mostly unlocked from killing those goblins with it. Apparently, killing something with water is enough to gain some proficiency in that type of magic.

  Now that is broken. I can exploit the hell out of that.

  The only thing left I had to do was to simply try to use it, over and over, until it finally worked. I'm able to generate a ball of water out of seemingly nothing a few inches above my hand.

  That's the spell, Water Creation.

  It looks so strange, water gathering in the air, from nothing. The air doesn't feel dryer, so I don't think the spell pulls water out of the atmosphere. It just pops into existence. It's unnerving. Although, if it truly is appearing out of nothing, whatever that means in the context of physics, then the implications are endless. I wonder if I can create water inside of something and make it explode, like “Bug-Man” did to “Thermos” in that one movie when he expanded himself in that guy's rectum.

  In one game I played, I was able to shout an enemy off a mountain, perhaps in this world, I can drop a mountain on my enemies, or shove a mountain up his ass. If I can create water endlessly, that is. Interesting.

  Hmm. Now that I'm thinking about it. There is one big difference between me and everyone else in this world. I come from a more scientifically advanced one. This world works as Miss Adelika told me, so simply knowing the properties and make-up of things can help you learn Magic. This probably won't work all the time because I still need proficiency in the use of Magic itself.

  Buuuuuut.

  I should be able to unlock adjacent and advanced forms of Magic for things I already know about. For instance, I know that water expands when it freezes, and you can freeze water at room temperature if you put it in a vacuum chamber. Or boil it via compression. You can combust all sorts of things just by pressurizing them fast enough.

  Here goes nothing.

  Imagine decompressing a ball of water after creating it. Slow down the molecules and draw energy away from it, lower the entropy, until it halts, frozen.

  3 hours later.

  "Congratulations. You've learned a new spell, Ice Ball in the Magic Form Water Magic. The damage this Spell deals and its Mana usage will increase with proficiency."

  Aha! It worked!

  I hope that weird time hopping thing doesn't become a regular gag.

  Next on my agenda is… rapid compression for steam, Fire Magic, Wind Magic, and whatever else comes with that.

  8 hours later.

  Alright, that's enough of that.

  I'm getting pretty exhausted at this point.

  I've unlocked all the basics. As to how I did it. Boring, empty and repetitive tasks that took forever. Game Exploiter stuff.

  My next exploit though, is sure to be the most game breaking of all. Something that will surely make me invincible. A powerhouse to end all powerhouses. A Godlike item that's sure to strike fear into the eyes of anyone who sees it. Something that will make me unstoppable.

  A drinking hat!

  Oh yeah baby, I'm a genius.

  I've thought about this a lot. Mostly because I have no life. I've always thought that strapping small glass vials to your waste is the dumbest thing ever. It works in video games for balancing reasons but in real life it's not practical. I mean, come on. Wouldn't the most practical way to use instant healing potions, be to strap a whole ass bucket to your head with a straw coming out of it. Then you would have constant and immediate access to your potions, even during battle.

  You just have to make sure the container is just the right size, and make a lid for it. Separate them by type with a divider in the middle. Then you fill it up with more potions than you'll ever need, and strap it on with a simple buckle. Just like that, you're essentially invincible, which is why you can't do that in games. Arth, however, is real, and I can do whatever I want. Game balancing never stopped me from becoming a powerhouse in the past, but this world has shit for balancing. This whole journey will be a breeze. The only thing I'm worried about now is boredom.

  Sometimes I surprise myself with how much of a genius I am.

  Don’t get cocky

  “Huh?”