"Am I hallucinating?"
The denial of what Deven was seeing was visible in his question.
Deven rubbed his eyes to ensure his eyesight was okay. However, to his disbelief, a certain blue transparent panel was still there, floating in mid-air, right in front of his face as if to make him accept reality.
Deven rubbed his temples.
"I know I have read too many novels, but come on, really? You want me to believe that those systems in the fantasy novels were real? And now I've got one myself? Seriously? Haha, nice trick, mind! Like hell I'll believe that!... This has to be a sick joke my brain is playing with me."
Deven's voice was full of skepticism and refusal.
There was a reason why Deven was so reluctant to accept the idea of having a system.
It was quite simple: "It's too good to be true."
Life has been cruel with his expectations and happiness whenever it got the chance. So, from a young age, he knew it was best to keep his hopes down.
Now that life was giving him such a massive opportunity, he got too scared to accept it, fearing it might disappear at any moment.
Regardless of his worries, reality remained unchanged. The system was there, in front of his eyes.
"Haaaah"
A long sigh escaped Deven's mouth, calming him to a certain degree.
"Okay, fuck it. Let's see how long this facade goes on. For now, I'll play along and see where this delusion of mine leads me."
Deven tried to adjust to his new reality. He tried to click on the system interface, but his hand went through the panel.
"Hmm... so it's not a physical thing, huh. This makes it more prone to be a hallucination. Anyway, let's try something else."
Deven tried to control the system with his mind, and surprisingly or unsurprisingly, it worked. A bunch of notifications popped up on the system screen. He read them one by one, and only two things stood out to him after finishing reading all the notifications.
One is that the system had to downgrade because he wasn't worthy of the original version. You could guess from that how pathetic he has been.
Moving on, the second thing he noticed was the name of the current system, which gave him some vague ideas of what to expect from the system.
"Damn! Even my special opportunity thinks I'm crap! How bad is my luck?... Haah... forget it... Status."
The system responded swiftly to his command, and on the panel screen, it now showed his status, where the notifications had been.
-----------------------------------------
[Self-improvementSystem]
_[Status]_
[Name] - [Deven Silva]
[Age] - [25]
[Sex] - [Male]
-----------------------------------------
_[Stats]_
[Strength] - [9] (+)
[Agility] - [9] (+)
[Stamina] - [8] (+)
[Endurance] - [7] (+)
[Vitality] - [9] (+)
[Intelligence] - [8] (+)
[Wisdom] - [11] (+)
[Charm] - [9] (+)
------------------------------------------
Deven's status screen looked very plain and simple to him, a bit too simple to be exact. It felt like something was missing, then it hit him.
"Huh? Weren't there supposed to be skills, quests, system store, and stuff? Why's there only status and stats? Wait... is it because of the system downgrade shit?... Damn it. I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of things because of my so-called unworthiness. Tsk Tsk! Whatever, let's focus on what we have.'
Deven was about to check his system more thoroughly, but before he could do that, his mother's shout echoed again.
"DEVEN, have you noticed what time it is? Don't you wanna go to your job today or what?"
Hearing that, Deven looked at the wall clock and saw it was almost 11 am.
"Shit, I'm late again. I'm going to get scolded again if I don't hurry."
Not wanting any further delay, Deven hurriedly got out of his bed, sprinted to his washroom to freshen up and get ready, while completely forgetting about the system.
This type of ADHD behavior was nothing uncommon for him.
Whether he could get better in the future was unknown for the time being.
***
"How will we continue like this if you regularly decide to be irresponsible? Tell me, is it right to always be late for work? You do know that this is affecting my business, right?"
Deven was quietly listening to his boss's lecture, because he had no excuse to counter with.
Although he feels guilty about always being late for work, unfortunately, for some reason, there's always something that prevents him from coming to work on time. It could be waking up late, or the sudden urge to take a dump right when he is about to set off to work, or his mom's unwanted grocery shopping request when he's just about to come to work, etc.
But right now, Deven wasn't thinking about this; his mind was preoccupied with what to do with his system that hadn't provided anything useful yet.
It's been almost 4 hours since his first encounter with the system in the morning.
In these 4 hours, Deven has discovered many things about the system that amount to nothing in the end.
He has uncovered that his system is not sentient like the other systems in the novels he read. It also doesn't respond to any question he asks.
Deven can command his system with his mind. The system only has a Status that displays his basic info and stats, and a notification panel, nothing else, that's how it seems at least for now.
As for his stats, he couldn't find any additional info other than what was displayed on the panel, only the name of the attribute and the numerical value.
Deven, for now, was waiting for a quest to appear because, at this point, that's the only thing that could make the system a bit useful. If not that, then the system's practically useless.
***
While Deven's mind was brainstorming about the system, his boss's scolding was already over, and he had been calling Deven's name for a few seconds now.
"Oi! What are you daydreaming about in the middle of our conversation? Is everything okay? Is there something bothering you? Say what's on your mind."
Deven's boss, Azel, who was also Deven's friend, asked with a slight concern.
Seeing Deven's absentmindedness, Azel internally contemplated whether he had lectured him a bit too much.
Then Azel shook his head and thought, 'Nah, this bast*rd is probably thinking about some 2D chick that he saw in hentai, I'm pretty sure.'
That's how Deven's reputation is in front of his friends.