Game of Flames

Chapter 1: Tutorial

AN: Salutations! Now, I wasn't originally planning on ever doing a Gamer fic, but I was looking about for inspiration, and I realised that the majority of Gamer fics were either HP, RWBY, or Naruto. That combined with me sitting for a few hours bouncing around ideas on how to go about messing with KHR, and boom. Now, i've read a good couple dozen Gamer fics in my time here on FF, and one of the issues I see most prevalent in the trope is that the MC's numbers tend to shoot way up really quickly, either due to level grinding or time skips. I will, of course, do my best to keep everything as logical and plausible as possible. Now, everything else that's important will be put in the longer description on my profile. I'm really trying to shorten these obnoxious AN's. Well, let's stop talking and get this show on the road!

_GoF_GoF_GoF_GoF_GoF_GoF_GoF_

Sawada Tsunayoshi was many things. 15, and about to start his first day of high school. A little on the short side. Terrible at anything physical. A bit slow in the head, some might say. One thing Tsuna generally wasn't though, was schizophrenic. Well, at least he didn't think he was. He wasn't too sure of the definition for that word, and what he was seeing in front of him made it hard to argue it anyways.

Welcome Sawada Tsunayoshi, to The Game.

Press the arrow to start the tutorial.

A soft ding sound had woken him up this morning. Looking to the right at the alarm clock on his desk, he can see it's 6 in the morning. Even on his best days, this is still two hours early for him. Grumbling, and about to go back to sleep, he turned his head only to see this...thing.

He had tried rubbing his eyes, pinching his arm, and even holding his breath until he nearly turned as blue as the impossibility in front of him. Nothing changed the fact that it was hovering in front of his face, about half a meter away.

Sitting up hadn't helped, though the...screen? Whatever it was, it had moved at the same rate his head had, and had even tilted so that it remained in the exact same position relative to his head as it was when he was lying down.

Honestly, the most confusing part of all this is the fact that he's not panicking. Usually in moments like this the first thing he'd do would be to release a shriek audible only to canines. Now however, he just feels...calm.

'How odd. I wonder if this blue box has an answer for why i'm not scared right now?' Deciding to take the chance and investigate further, Tsuna reaches to tap the small symbol on the bottom of the screen just beneath the text, the 'arrow' resembling as if someone typed out two equal signs and then a 'greater than' symbol, but he pauses when he turns to look at his clock once more.

6 o'clock. It's probably been two or three minutes since he woke up, but the clock hasn't changed. 'It's probably busted,' Tsuna thinks. Figuring that the tutorial or whatever is going on here can wait another moment, Tsuna gets up out of bed and takes the two steps to pick up his alarm clock.

Glancing up at his window to verify that it really is 6 in the morning, Tsuna almost drops his clock in shock. Right in front of his window is a bird. Normally, this wouldn't be much of an issue, seeing as how most animals actually rather like Tsuna. With the exception of Chihuahua's of course, but those are creatures of pure evil, and as such not subject to the normal rules. At least, that's what Tsuna firmly believes.

The reason Tsuna is shocked to see the bird this morning is because of what it's doing. Or rather, what it isn't doing. About two meters away from his window, it would appear as if someone took a picture of a bird mid flight and stuck it on Tsuna's window. At least, that's what he would believe if he hadn't opened said window just to double check for just that.

'My clock still reads 6 even after five minutes, and there's a bird frozen in the air outside my window. It's official. Either this is the most intense dream ever, or time has stopped. This...could be a problem.'

Of course, this entire introspection has only given rise to an increased need to figure out why exactly he isn't scared out of his pants at this point. Turning back towards his room, and staring at the blue window, Tsuna heaves a great sigh.

'Might as well get this over with. Please don't hurt me.' With a surprisingly stable hand, Tsuna reaches out and gently taps on the arrow at the bottom of the blue box. Another soft ding rings out as the box disappears only to be replaced by another not a second later. This box is much larger, holding several lines of text.

As i'm sure you might have noticed, things have changed.

As of right now, you are caught in what I like to refer to as an

Irregular Temporal Distortion Field.

I.D., or Irregular Distortion, for short.

Do not worry, the I.D. affects everything except you and these messages.

When you finish this tutorial, the I.D. will fall and time will resume as normal.

For now, allow me to introduce myself.

I am Phantomdrache Von Anderung.

You may refer to me as Phantom Drache, or simply Drache.

To continue the Tutorial, please press the arrow.

"Phantom-what now? Are you telling me that somebody did this?" The blue box offers no further answers. "Well, i've already started. Might as well see this through to the end."

*Ding*

Now, i'm sure you've a great many questions.

Who are you?

What did you do?

Why are you doing this?

Do you like jazz?

Of course, all of your questions will be answered.

And for the record, yes. I do enjoy jazz.

As for who I am, well. Let's just say that i'm a traveler.

I travel to certain places, and I observe the future of that place.

Depending on whether or not anybody interests me, I might...

Offer a helping hand, shall we say.

The why is also simple. I get bored really easily.

To learn exactly what's going to happen now, please press the arrow.

*Ding*

As stated in the first message, you are now part of 'The Game'.

What is 'The Game'?

Well, to put it simply, I decided that you would provide suitable entertainment, and decided to turn your entire life into a game, complete with levels and experience!

Aren't you quite the lucky fellow?

Now, before you ask, no this is not some mistake.

And no, i'm not doing this as some elaborate prank to make your life even worse than it already is.

I wanted to help you, believe it or not.

Now, as for what 'making your life a game' actually means, if you'll press the arrow we can finally get to the meat of the matter.

*Ding*

Now, as a young, lonely teen, i'm sure you've spent plenty of time playing video games during the free time you have since nobody wants to hang out with you.

"Hey!"

As such, i'm not going to patronize you with all the tiny details.

This particular version of The Game comes with a new and improved User Interface! This allows you to use all facets of The Game using mental commands, rather than having to say everything out loud.

In addition, these boxes are completely invisible to anyone besides you. Even in the event that someone somehow possesses your body, they still won't be able to see the boxes.

To continue the tutorial, please think the phrase 'Status'.

"Hmm. This box doesn't have an arrow. I guess if I want to get this over with, I have to do as it asks. Didn't need to make fun of me though, and that bit about possession worries me." Running his hand through his vibrant and bouncy brown hair, Tsuna decides that at this point everything is too insane for a dream. And if he does wake up from this, then he's just going to repress the memory and pretend it never happened.

'Status.' another soft ding rings out, and this time two blue boxes pop up. Ignoring the one with more words on it for now, Tsuna reads to one with a bunch of numbers on it.

Sawada Tsunayoshi, The Gamer

Age: 15

HP: 50/50

?: ?/?

Level: 0

Exp: 0/10

Money: 0

Str: 5

Dex: 5

Con: 5

Int: 5

Wis: 5

Cha: 10

Titles:

Son of Iemitsu: +25% Str and Con gains, +25% Experience gains to Combat Skills +25% ?, +25% Reputation gains with ?, +10% reputation with ? ? allied with ?

Descendant of ?: +50% Int and Wis Gains, +50% ? +50% Reputation gains with ?, +75% Reputation gains with ?, +? ?

Mama's boy: +25% Reputation gains with females, +25% Experience gains with Non-Combat Skills, +5 Cha

No-Good: -25% all Experience gains

? ?: -50% Int and Wis gains, -50% all Experience gains, Unable to access ? ? ? ? without aid until Title is removed

"This is...incredibly disappointing. If I remember right, don't most game characters start with 10's across the board? And what's with all the question marks and negatives?" Sadly, no answers were coming from the box in front of him, so Tsuna turned to the other box.

This is your Status Screen also known as the Character Screen.

Str is Strength. Kind of obvious what that does.

Dex is Dexterity. This determines how fast you are, as well as your ability to do tasks requiring a more deft hand.

Con stands for Constitution. This is, in layman's terms, how healthy you are. Each point in Con increases maximum Health Points, or HP, by 10 and each level up gives you 25 HP. You regenerate 1% of your Hp every 5 seconds. If you reach 0 HP, you are knocked unconscious. Further damage can result in Death.

Int is Intelligence. This is how easily you retain knowledge. Maximum ? ?, or ?, is deduced from 10 times your Int, plus 25 per Level. You regenerate 1% of your ? every 5 seconds. If you reach 0 ?, you suffer from ? ?, and lose 5 Hp per second.

Wis stands for Wisdom. This is how well you are able to utilize the information you have.

Cha is Charisma. This determines how people view you and how they react to the things you do or say. Generally speaking, the higher your Cha, the faster you gain Reputation with a person/group.

You gain 5 'Free Points' that you can allocate to any stat every level, and you can even raise your stats manually by doing something that directly correlates to that stat. Lift weights to increase Str, run laps to raise Dex, read a book for once in your life to raise Int, and so on.

Now, normally people start off with 10 points in each stat, however due to your titles of 'No-Good' and '? ?', you are weaker than everyone else your age, and perhaps a few people younger than you.

"Sad, but true. Let's see what else this has to say. Hopefully i'll finally learn why i'm so calm." The fact that he wasn't bothered by any of this was actually starting to bother Tsuna. At least until his concern gets swept away by the unending calm he'd been feeling since he woke up.

*Ding*

"Is there a way to turn that annoying sound off?" Honestly, if he was able to, he'd be quite aggravated by the noise by now.

Now, as i'm sure you've noticed by now, certain portions of your Status are currently replaced with question marks. This means that you do not have sufficient knowledge on the matter, and need to learn more about yourself and/or the world around you in order to unlock this knowledge.

As for why you've maintained your calm this far, which goes against your generally frightened personality, that is due to a certain temporary feature i've added to your status.

The particular temporary feature you have is 'The Gamer'. You know, the little bit next to your name?

Besides the title next to your name, 'The Gamer' gives you two extra abilities that will last until you finish the tutorial. They are 'Irregular Distortion', and 'Gamer's Mind'.

I already explained what the I.D. does, so let's focus on 'Gamer's Mind.

Gamer's Mind allows a person to observe the world around them in a calm and orderly fashion, automatically getting rid of any mental status effects such as fear.

Due to the fact that prolonged exposure to Gamers Mind causes a person to slowly lose their personality, I have removed Gamer's Mind as a permanent feature.

"Well, that explains that. I'm happy that this isn't permanent, though. It's nice to no longer be afraid of my own shadow, but everything feels so ... distant. Like I don't really care about anything that's happening. Well, I guess i'll just have to finish this up if I want to go back to normal." Another arrow, another annoying ding.

I'm sure you're getting tired of reading wall upon wall of text, so let's wrap this up, shall we?

Other features of The Game include Skills, Quests, Reputation, and your Inventory.

All can be opened using either a vocal or mental command, same as your Status screen. Of course, seeing as you've yet to receive any quests, or obtain any items, those two screens are currently empty. You currently possess one skill, though it is blocked out because you lack the knowledge necessary to see it.

Skills are divided between Combat-Skills and Non-Combat-Skills. This is of course, pretty self explanatory. Punching things is a combat skill, cooking would be non-combat. That is not to say that one can not use a Non-Combat skill in a fight, or that Combat skills are only useful in a fight, but generally they are just more effective in a specific scenario. Not exactly gonna punch a souffle into submission, are you? Note that Skill Experience does not transfer over to Level Experience.

Skill Success Rate, or whether or not you actually do what you're trying to do, is dependant on a metaphorical 'dice' that ranges from 1 to 100. A 51 or higher is considered a success, with a 49 or lower being a failure. The further you are on either side of this barrier, the better you succeed, or the harder you fail. If a 1 or 100 is rolled, you either Critically Fail or Critically Succeed respectively. These are interesting, so be on the lookout. Skill levels affect you success rate with a direct increase of 1% per skill level. This means a level 10 skill gives a 10% boost, while a level 25 skill gives a 25% boost. Now, just because this means you can get a +100% to your checks doesn't mean you can't fail. If you roll a Critical Fail, you Critically Fail no matter what.

Once you max out a Skill, you get the opportunity to 'Evolve' your Skill. this will decrease it's level back to 1/100, but will actually increase it's effects. For example, if you max out your Cooking skill, you can Evolve it into 'Gourmet Cooking'. At this point, you will still have a 100% chance of successfully cooking a meal, but you'll begin to get a bonus to the quality of your food. Even higher levels will unlock special attributes and Sub-Skills.

Sub-Skills are exactly what they sound like. It's something kinda like a Skill, but it's not important enough to be its own skill, so it get put in as part of a different Skill. For example, 'Reloading' is fairly important if you ever find yourself holding a gun, but it's not as important as the overall 'Firearms Mastery' Skill, so it gets a spot as a Sub-Skill within 'Firearms Mastery'.

Quests are missions or objectives the The Game has decided to reward you for completing. These can range from simple fetch quests, to repeat quests such as 'get to school on time', all the way up to 'Kill a God'. Of course, the easier the Quest, the lower the rewards, and vice versa.

Reputation is simply how people or groups view you in a general way. The higher your Reputation with someone, the better your relationship is. Reputation exists in 5 Stages: Hated, Disliked, Neutral, Liked, and Loved. To go from Neutral to either Liked or Disliked is fairly simple. To go from Liked to Loved, or Disliked to Hated takes a bit more effort. Each Stage has 1000 'points' maximum. If you reach 1000 Liked 'points' you rank up to Loved, and the points reset to 10. If you reach 0 points in a stage, you rank down to the next lowest stage with 990 points. Gaining or losing points becomes more difficult the higher your number goes, though if you lose several points in rapid succession, you risk losing an entire stage even if you started off at a high number. All Reputation starts at Neutral: 500/1000, unless you do something significant enough to affect the minds of people who don't even know you.

Inventory is exactly what you think it is. Of course, giving someone an infinitely deep hammer space would break all semblance of balance and ruin my fun, so you are only given 10 'slots' for inventory, though identical items can 'stack' up to 100. Money does not take up a slot, nor does anything you actually wear.

Anyways, that's about all I have to say to you. To completely finish the tutorial and escape the I.D i've set up, finish the quest 'Finish Tutorial'. The reward will be a simple 10 Exp to raise you to level 1, and the ability to resume your life in a non-frozen manner. Oh, and I suggest you finish the quest in your room, so nobody questions why you suddenly came into existence in a spot you weren't at a second ago.

To get rid of this box and pull up the Quest: 'Finish Tutorial', press the arrow.

Oh, and welcome to high school, Tsuna. I hope you enjoy yourself.

P.S. No, there is no Settings page for The Game.

This is a lot to take in. Just 24 hours ago, he had been a nobody. Just living day to day trying not to stand out too much and risk his peers heckling him for his complete lack of talent either in the classroom or on the field.

Now however? Apparently some random God or God-like being had decided that they liked him, and now his life was a game. This is insane. the only reason he's not dismissing all of this as some hallucination or dream anymore is the fact that reading all that took half an hour, and not only has his clock not moved, but the bird hadn't either, and he'd not once felt like he was going to wake up.

Tsuna takes a moment to just sit on his bed and collect his thoughts. And isn't that an oddity? Before today, every time he tried to think too hard on anything, he'd gotten a splitting headache, as if his brain was fighting itself. After a few months of that, he'd learned to simply stop thinking, and that was years ago. It was part of why he had so much trouble in class. He read the material, listened to the lectures, but every time he tried to remember what he'd learned, his head would hurt and nothing would make sense anymore. Perhaps one of the things full of questions marks is the reason? Or maybe it's just the fact that he's apparently literally half as smart as everyone else.

Well, sitting around isn't going to do anything, so might as well do the Quest. Reaching up a hand lazily at the box that followed him around, Tsuna heard another of those dings as he pushes the arrow.

Quest Alert!

"Finish Tutorial"

Description: Do as the title says, and finally get out of the tutorial!

Completion Conditions:

-Raise two stats up at least one point

-Get at least one skill

-Check out the pages the tutorial didn't cover

a.) Skill list

b.) Quest List

c.) Reputation Page

d.) Inventory

Failure conditions:

...Fuck if I know how you'd fail this. You can sit in your bed for what would feel like a week and probably still manage to complete this, even on accident. So just don't deliberately try to fail I suppose.

Rewards:

+10 Exp

+2 surprise items

(Quest can not be denied)

"Surprise items? The other blue box didn't say anything about those. well, I suppose it wouldn't be much of a surprise if it did. Now, what stats should I work on? Well, I saw a lot of things giving me bonuses and penalties to my stats, so I should probably figure out what those add up to before I pick something. That way I can pick the easiest stat to increase." and with that Tsuna opens his Status once more.

What follows is 10 minutes of scribbling down numbers and double checking with his Status screen to make sure he got everything right. the results are...less than pleasing.

"Well, according to the math: Strength, Dex, Con, and all my skills are at -50 percent experience gain, with Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, and Reputation at -75 percent. That...explains a lot honestly. It's not just that i'm half as smart as everyone else, I also learn at a quarter the speed everyone else does, assuming they don't have any bonuses to their Intelligence or Wisdom gains."

Tsuna spins in the swivel chair he begged his mom to get him a few years ago as he thinks about what all that means. Clearly, whatever title he had that was all in question marks, plus his 'No-good' title were basically removing any chance he had to get better academically. Of course, given all his physical abilities are at half-growth speed, it's not like this 'game' is telling him to focus on becoming some sort of heavy hitter.

"Hmm. It said that the question mark title could be removed. I wonder how I go about that, and if I can do the same for my 'No-Good' title?" As he says this out-loud, another ding rings out. At this point, Tsuna's gathered that the noise is literally entirely in his head, as he's yet to see any device in his room that could make such a sound.

Quest Alert!

'Remove your No-Good Title!'

Description: Being No-Good is no good! To 'get good', you better get rid of that title.

Completion Conditions:

-Raise all your Stats to a minimum of 10

Failure Conditions:

Unless you plan on doing literally nothing with your life from this point on, it's inevitable that you'll complete this quest.

Rewards:

-The Title 'No-Good' and all its effects will be removed

+50 Exp

+25 Reputation with Sawada Nana

+50 Reputation with group: Classmates

+75 reputation with group: Namimori High

(You can not decline this Quest, though I'm not sure why you'd want to.)

Quest Alert!

'Remove Title: ? ?'

Description: As of right now, you have no idea what this Title even is, let alone why you have it, you only know that you don't like it. Try and figure out what it is and how to get rid of it!

Completion Conditions:

- Meet ?

-Gain Skill ? ? ?

- Learn about ? ? ?

-Max out the Skill ? ? ? so it evolves into ? ? ? ?

Failure Conditions:

Die before you finish this Quest. Note: Dying will result in a 'Game Over'. There are no re-do's. There are no Save Points. When you die, that's that. The End. So yeah, try to avoid that.

Rewards:

-Your ? are no longer ?

-Title '? ?' and all its effects are removed

+100,000 Exp

(You can not decline this Quest. Period.)

Oh.

"That's...not good. I mean, I wasn't expecting anything like Save Points, but I also wasn't expecting the game to just out and say that I have a chance to die. I mean, logically speaking, I know that everyone dies at some point, but... I didn't expect this."

Well, normally he would have to repress the all encompassing fear for his life, but thankfully that 'Gamers Mind' thing still works. Right now Tsuna just feels...resigned. He doesn't want to die, and he certainly won't just keel over, but something about all this feels...inevitable.

"Well, i'll panic about that when I can feel my emotions again. For now, I might as well focus. So, I won't be able to get rid of either of these Titles right now, though i'm glad that my 'No-Good' title is given to go away eventually. Of course, sooner is better than later, so let's get those stats up." Tsuna goes back to spinning in his chair, having stopped to read the quests.

"Now, my physical stats are easier to raise, so for now I guess i'll focus on raising those. Once I get them up, get a skill, and check out those other pages, I'll just put my points into my intelligence and wisdom, seeing as it'll be harder to raise them normally." Tsuna stops spinning again when that familiar ding sounds again. Repressing a sigh, Tsuna looks at the blue box that appeared.

*Ding!*

For making a logical decision using the information at hand, your Wisdom has increased by 1!

Blink. Blink.

"Well...that was easier than I thought it would be." Of course, thinking about it, it does make sense. He had just done nearly 20 minutes worth of researching and rationalizing things. Of course, if he didn't have a minus 75% to his mental stats, he'd probably have gotten the notification after doing the math.

That's actually almost depressing, thinking about it. He's at such a low level of mental ability that doing some basic addition and subtraction probably would have raised his Intelligence. Oh well. Best not to look gift horses in the mouth, he believes that phrase went.

"Well, I guess i'll just raise my physical stats now. With only a -50%, it'll be faster and easier, plus I can look at those other pages when i'm resting." with that, Tsuna reluctantly gets out of his favorite chair, and moves into roughly the center of his room.

He has to shift his table out of the way, along with some loose bits and ends, but he makes enough space to do what he plans. Dropping to his knees, Tsuna gets into the position to start doing push-ups.

And 1...2...3. This is going to be a while.

A full 20 minutes and 10 pushups later, Tsuna finally hears that ding again. With his limbs now feeling like lead, it's almost enough for him to actually appreciate the sound. Almost.

Due to exerting your muscles beyond your normal level of activity, you have increased your Strength by 1! Try and pick up the pace next time though. That was embarrassing.

"Screw...you." Thankfully Tsuna's faith in his masculinity was already so low that the jab barely fazed him. Going from push-up position to laying on his back, Tsuna takes the time spent recovering his admittedly abysmal stamina to check out those pages he hasn't gotten around to.

He had entertained the thought of doing so while 'working out', but the 'exercise' had taken so much of his focus not to call it quits halfway through that he doubted he had the fortitude to do both things at the same time.

'Skills.' The mental command brings up one more of those accursed blue boxes, complete with the 'ding'.

Skill List

Combat Skills:

? ? Lvl MAX

Non-Combat Skills:

That's the entire screen. He knows the voice in the boxes, Drake or something like that, had said he didn't have any skills, but hearing it and seeing it are two different things, if the quick stab of disappointment he feels before it gets washed away says anything. Although he's still curious what the blocked skill is. It says it's level is maxed out, but that doesn't tell Tsuna whether that means it's some sort of reality-breaking OP skill, or some absolutely worthless skill that maxed itself out because of how easy it is to level. Like if Tsuna had a 'Japanese language' skill, it'd probably be close to maxed out.

The Quest Page brings up the only three Quests he currently has. The voice had said that Quests could be literally anything, so Tsuna supposes that that means that the Quest Page will Eventually fill out more.

Inventory is a bit more interesting. As the boxes had said, there are only 10 'slots', which take the form of ten blue boxes linked together in a circle that hovers at Tsuna's waist, forming a ring about 2 meters in diameter with the right and left edges of each box touching another box. Originally, Tsuna only saw 5 boxes, and thought he was about to get shafted half his Inventory, only to stand up and see the other 5 boxes appear behind him.

Experimenting with a spare water bottle, Tsuna figures that each box is actually a unique entity, in that he can put an item in a specific box, and spin the circle around to move the item according to it's new location. Well, assuming that these boxes are invisible like they said towards the beginning, he could make one heck of a stage magician. Now he pulls up his Reputation page, which is actually a lot more in depth than he expected.

Reputation

Individuals:

Nana Sawada (Mother): Loved: 750/1000

Iemitsu Sawada (Father): Loved: 500/1000

Timoteo Vongola (?): Liked: 500/1000

Kyoko Sasagawa (Classmate): Liked: 150/1000

Hana Kurokawa (Classmate): Neutral: 750/1000

Kensuke Mochida (Fellow Student): Disliked: 800/1000

Hibari Kyoya (Fellow Student): Neutral: 500/1000

Nezu Dohachiro (Teacher): Hated: 250/1000

Groups:

?: Neutral: 900/1000

?: Neutral: 500/1000

Fellow Students: Neutral : 450/1000

Teachers: Disliked: 850/1000

Classmates: Disliked: 700/1000

Well now. This was interesting. Timoteo...that was the old man who visited a couple times a few years ago, wasn't he? Assuming the words in parentheses are the groups that an individual is part of, so that means that the old man is part of one of the two unknown groups on here. And why does one of Tsuna's teachers hate him so much when he hasn't even gone to school yet?

Ah. Nezu was the science teacher that's constantly harping on about tests, isn't he? Tsuna had heard on the grapevine that he hates students who don't do well on his many, many tests, so it makes sense that Tsuna, who was one of the lowest scoring students in middle school would be on his shit-list.

The same can be said of the other teachers, as well as the students in general. Even if they don't know Tsuna personally, they've more than likely heard of his reputation.

Well, at least Kyoko likes him. A fact he was sure to do a dance of joy for the moment the Gamers Mind stopped suppressing his emotions. And Hana, Kyoko's friend, seemed have a slightly better opinion of him than she let on.

Celebrations later. For now, Tsuna still has one more objective left before he can finally be done with this tutorial. Now then, creating a Skill. How in the world is he supposed to do that? Tsuna moves back to his swivel chair to think this over.

"A Skill. Defined as something that you're good at. A thing you do. What's something I can do? Not a whole lot in that column, unfortunately. Hmm. It mentioned punching a lot, and this 'Game' seems under the impression that i'm gonna end up in a fight no matter what I do, given an entire section of my skill list is set as 'combat skills'. Well, I guess the easiest way to go about this would be to get a punching skill."

Tsuna ceases his swivelling once more and stands. Moving back to the center of his room, Tsuna takes what he imagines is a proper stance for practicing his punches. His legs are set almost a meter apart, his knees bent at a 45 degree angle, and his arms raised so his shoulders bunch up, elbows facing down, and fists almost resting on his cheeks.

"I feel incredibly stupid. Thank goodness nobody was around to see that." With this matter of fact statement, Tsuna abandons his previous attempt, and simply stands almost straight up, arms hanging in a more relaxed pose, fists resting at chest height about thirty centimeters away from his body.

"Well, nothing to do but try this out. Best case scenario, I get a Skill and I can finally be done with this. Worst case scenario, I simply try something else." and with that, Tsuna begins his attempts at punching the air into submission. Imagining that he's punching the person who wrote the blue boxes, he alternates which arm he uses with every punch. About 5 minutes in, Tsuna's already breathing a little hard, but he's done about 25 punches with each hand. Finally, the tell-tale sound rings once more.

*Ding!*

With repeated practice, you have created your first Skill!

New Skill: Punch

Level 1/100 : 0/10 Exp

Description: It's a punch, what do you expect? Level it up some more if you want to do anything crazy like breaking logs with your bare hands. You gain more experience if you actually hit something besides the air, by the way. Active Skill, obviously.

+1 Strength every 5 levels

Your fists now do a base damage of (Str plus Punch Level).

"I see whoever writes these is still a prick." The lack of fear regarding cosmic intervention is pretty much the only reason that Tsuna would dare insult the mysterious being who apparently had the power to do whatever it wished with his life. In his current mindset, Tsuna is sure that whoever gave him this 'gift' wouldn't be quick to take it away just because of a few words. He'd more than likely panic about his life choices after he could manage to feel anything again.

*Ding!*

Something that might happen sooner than later.

Quest Alert!

You have completed the Quest: 'Finish Tutorial'!

Rewards:

+10 Exp

+2 Surprise Items

*Ding*

Level Up!

You are now Level 1!

You have 0 of 25 experience until the next Level.

*Ding*

For completing the tutorial, as well as a gift for entering High School, Phantomdrache has decided to grant you two gifts. They will appear in your inventory after closing this window.

Welcome, Sawada Tsunayoshi, to The Game.

Well, at least he's finally done with all that. Oh. Oh god. He can feel again. And now he's hyperventilating. Great. It takes Tsuna thirty minutes and no less than three kleenex tissues to collect himself.

Standing up, he double checks that time has resumed itself. The relief he feels when he sees the clock read 6:32 AM is almost palpable, not that he knows the meaning of the word. The clouds are even lazily drifting across the sky again, and the bird is nowhere to be seen.

"I-I can't believe it. T-This is crazy!" After taking another minute to work up the courage, Tsuna decides it's best to check out the items he just earned before going through the process of 'leveling up', as it were.

With a thought that's more a mental whisper than a command, Tsuna jumps a little when the ring of blue boxes fades into existence around him and the swivel chair he was now holding onto for dear life.

There, next to the water bottle he had forgotten to remove, is a necklace and a piece of paper, taking up a block each. Deciding to start with the paper in case it's important, Tsuna hesitantly reaches his hand towards the blue square. when his hand is nearly touching it, the box glows faintly and the paper seems to glide out of the box into his hand. With a loud gulp, Tsuna unfolds it slowly.

Hello Tsuna.

This is Phantomdrache again. I know that now that Gamer's Mind has been removed, you must be very scared. Don't worry. When I arrived at this reality, I looked into your future. Had I not intervened, you would still have lead a life full of adventure and things you wouldn't have dreamed about. I didn't change anything about the present or the past, I just made it so you'd end up being stronger. So consider what i'm doing as me simply...accelerating things a little. Now, I didn't give you this note just to calm you down. I also wanted to give you a little helpful advice. For an essential Non-Combat Skill, I suggest you take the time to Observe your surroundings a bit more than usual. Well, that's all I have time for. You won't hear directly from me for a long time, so don't worry about me constantly peeking over your shoulders. Have fun, and enjoy your life.

See you later Tsuna,

Phantomdrache

_GoF_GoF_GoF_GoF_GoF_GoF_GoF_

AN: Well, hope you guys enjoyed that. I decided to take the whole concept of ROB (Random Omnipotent Being) and give it a Phantom Drache twist. As you can see, this ain't your usual Gamer fic. For starters most stories keep Gamer's Mind and Gamer's Body. I never even mentioned Gamer's body, and the only reason Gamer's Mind was a temporary part of this story was because given Tsuna's character at this point in time, he'd be more likely to scream his head off and run around like a chicken for an hour before actually getting anything meaningful to the plot done. And most of stories also involve creating the most OP main character possible. Not for this writer, no sir. In fact I actually had to rewrite things a couple times in order to avoid accidentally making it so one of Tsuna's gains hit negative 100 percent. In this story, Tsuna's gonna have to work his ass off to even hit the level of 'average'. Becoming Vongola Decimo is gonna make Tsuna fear for his life several times before he even gets to the half-way mark. Of course, as we advance further, I do want Tsuna to end up being easily top 10 strongest people in the world, second really only to the Arcobaleno and Checker-Face. But that's a long way into the future. I want his progression to be believable. Now, I'm gonna keep a side-file on my computer to keep track of Tsuna's Stats and Skills. I'm thinking of posting at least his Stats at the end of every chapter, but i'm not sure if that'll become too tedious, especially with the fact that there will be times that his Stats get repeated a couple time in the story itself. Let me know what you think in a review. For now, I guess i'll see you guys next time in Game of Flames Chapter 2: Day 1.

Signed,

Phantom Drache.