From there, things got a little fuzzier, because the odds were very high the Crusaders would haul him off in who-knows-what direction as soon as he got there. And then he'd tell them... What? That he had somehow become a living video game character? Up until now, he hadn't actually considered what might come as a consequence of telling ponies what was going on. Since the Crusaders were his close friends and also the most likely ponies to spill the beans if he tried to keep it secret... If he was going to make a decision on the matter, now was the time. Twilight's advice settled down onto his mind in the usual way, and thus Spike considered the angles.
Pros: He'd have a social group close to him that he could talk about the whole thing with. He'd have ponies to show off to. Maybe he could help them get their Cutie Marks. Maybe they could help him pick up and train new skills. It would be fun.
Cons: He'd have a social group close to him to talk to anypony they felt like about the whole thing. He'd have ponies to show off to. He might end up helping them get their Cutie Marks. They might help him develop new skills. It would be dangerous.
...Well, that was a pair of distressingly similar lists. Arguments about "fun" and "dangerous" being synonyms aside, this really did feel like an arbitrary choice. Telling them could get them all into odd situations, not telling them could hurt feelings, they'd probably find out eventually anyways... It was that last bit that he felt was the most important. Be it through deliberate focused meddling or just bad luck, the Crusaders would positively absolutely certainly get mixed up in whatever he chose to do. Heck, the odds would probably increase along with the danger he got into (asymptotically, the Twilight-trained part of his brain chimed in), so keeping them in the dark would be worse and more dangerous for them and others.
Why did he think of danger now instead of earlier? That was simple (to him, anyways): Before thinking about this particular wrinkle this had been his problem, and his mostly-alone. As soon as he got other ponies (especially ones his own age) involved? Then the risks actually mattered. But hey, as far as risks went, how much worse could this be than anything the CMC had already done? He himself probably was not a danger or a threat, and he wasn't planning to do anything too insane. Even if he were going to do anything risky, this is a group of fillies who have already dealt with basilisks and worse. And maybe...
Maybe nothing would happen. Just because he happened to have an ability that told him about his HP, gave him damage resistance and regeneration, and defined his claws in terms of their attack power... None of that meant this had to be a dangerous game. ...That was a pleasant thought at least, but his life had already been weird and dangerous even before today! From general Ponyville madness to the Everfree Forest, the Changelings, Discord... There was always risk in life, but maybe now he'd be better suited to face it.
Honestly, his power could probably be used to help protect ponies from all those things. He had MP after all, and a lot of games had buffs. Plus breakfast had just proven he had the ability to get and maybe give perks (albeit small ones) with food alone, much less spells.
So it was probably reasonable to chalk up the "danger" side of the equation as being, um, not much worse than usual. He didn't have any real concerns about keeping it a secret, so long as ponies respected his privacy as much as they already did. Getting the CMC their Cutie Marks... He'd be lying if the thought didn't have a kind of appeal. It's one thing to say that you and your friends were always meant to be together, it's another to have literal evidence of it the way Twilight and the Elements did. And as far as skills went, well... Here's hoping this game has a way to track tree sap resistance.
As for telling other ponies, he'd cross that bridge when he got to it. But for now, there was no question that he was going to tell the Crusaders and the Elements: He'd already told Twilight, he had a quest to tell Pinkie, he'd never keep that kind of secret from Rarity... No questions about it, it felt best to just get ahead of any misinformation, confusion, or drama. 'Tell early tell often', or something like that.
That might be easier than it seemed: If he ended up walking Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom to their houses after school, and then took Scootaloo to Rainbow Dash's place... That would actually run him by all the Elements except for Fluttershy. And the list of fines was going to force him out towards her place anyways, so there it was: A solid plan!
Now to just hope and pray nothing wrecked it.
Spike's first trip out of the Library since his new powers came to light was... Well, enlightening. He learned many useful things in those first few seconds. There were two dozen or so ponies milling about on their way to work, getting breakfast, or doing chores in the early hours of the morning... And only a tiny handful had a 'Level' higher than 7, with nopony breaking double digits. All told he saw three or four titles, universally attached to the rare outliers who were closer to 10 than not.
On top of his inherent sight of titles and levels, using Observe told him a fair bit more: Now that the skill had a decent level, it was showing him a Status screen much like his own, only slightly less detailed. Level, title, class, stats, a brief personal history, and any status effects they were under (he saw a few colds and decided to steer clear). No skills or other tabs, but perhaps that would come in time. Even the few things he saw were a bit weird. He didn't know a lot of these ponies that well, but he still saw cold details about their history, their work, their families...
Something to get used to, he supposed. It certainly wouldn't get in the way of how he saw or treated them, nor would it get in the way of his training.
Spike continued to watch ponies and use Observe on absolutely everything, even clouds and garbage, as he made his way to the first house he had to visit on "the patrol". Twilight usually did the collection of fines and overdue books herself, but sometimes it all piled up and Spike ended up taking a big list and heading out into town. Today's wasn't so bad, only seven or eight ponies, even if a few of the fines were pretty sizable. Plus the weather was great for the season: Seems like the Pegasus patrols had scheduled a nice spring shower overnight, leaving the town cool but not too chilly outside, and the ground was just a little soft under his claws.
The first target was within a stone's throw of home, so he only gained a few Observe levels on the way... Still, it seemed to be getting a bit irate about how often he was using it on 'meaningless' things. The descriptions of rocks, clouds, and random objects started to give more detail in an almost sarcastic tone... Which brought up the question of where this information was coming from.
Yeah, he was sure it was all true (he'd never seen or heard of a game that lied to the player in the UI: there was a bond of trust there), but how did his power obtain the facts? Was it just reading it from their 'profile', in some way? Was the information just... there, already true and merely waiting to be learned? He remembered Twilight going to a symposium about some kind of 'information body' outside of physical reality... The Akashi... something-or-other.
All of that was over his head right now, and even if it weren't, he had a schedule to keep. Dealing with the first fine and the accompanying overdue book was a breeze (Ms. Marker was a bit new to town, and hadn't realized it was a book her son had taken out from the library for a project), and it was doubly easy since he could just surreptitiously tuck them both in his Inventory as soon as he was out of sight. From their house it was a quick zig and zag across the street (making sure not to run into anypony, since he was a little faster than usual) to the front of Sugar Cube Corner, where he could see Pinkie hoofing out samples of some new creation.
Observing the samples showed that they were some kind of breakfast dumplings. She was passing them along to ponies along with little tiny dabs of hot sauce or lemon glaze, seemingly at random. Either that was just traditional Pinkie Pie cuisine, or she could tell which ones were savory and which were sweet without so much as looking. Even odds of either, actually...
Regardless, Spike went to Observe Pinkie herself and was not very surprised to get an abnormal response. He was a little surprised by the kind of response. After using his skill, he felt a terrible crack of static, like a detuned radio that had been slammed into the ground, and saw absolutely nothing except a brief blip of pink and blue, like a window struggling to open before being slammed shut in the same instant. That was new and worrying. Looking above her head, he saw an... explanation?
[A Magenta Mystery]
Pinkie Pie
LV 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375...