Djin watched as Silima continued to practice her new skill. He warned her to use the smallest amount of mana possible to start and to learn how to fall first. She took her advice to heart and it was only 14 more leaps until another halo appeared around her.
Skill Acquired - Cat's Landing Lv. 1
(Passive effect) You take much less damage from falling.
(Active effect) While falling, you can spend mana to cushion the impact.
Passive damage reduction - 60%
Active mana cost - Proportional to speed, up to 40 mana.
Djin was happy for her, Silima was really happy for herself. She continued to leap around outside of camp, stopping every so often while she waited for her mana to return. During one such break she asked Djin how he's able to cast so many spells.
"Seriously though Djin, I've seen you fight and you don't need to take nearly as much time between casts. Even if you had put every single point into intelligence, your mana regen still would not be high enough to explain it."
Djin replied in a mocking tone. "I'm special! If I told you why then you'll never be special too!"
However, he held out his hand to her and after a moment's hesitation she took it.
"Remember what we tried to do before Silima? Let's try again now that you've learned more about your mana."
She nodded and Djin pushed his mana towards her once more. The wall that stopped them before was now gone and he could feel his mana flowing freely into her. Her grip tightened on his hand, he concentrated more.
"There you see? You're able to take mana so easily now. I bet you're already near full mana again." Djin continued, waiting for her reply.
She was speechless, she was paralyzed by the amount of energy flowing into her body. Djin looked up to see her eyes rolling into her head. Panicking, he quickly severed the connection but already Silima was radiating excessive power from her body.
"SILIMA! Shit! It was too much? I only pushed a bit of my mana into her."
Djin weaved his mana into form and created four spider legs to poke at her hands and toes. He placed his hands back around her waist, then willed all his limbs to devour the excess energy. Silima was barely conscious as he worked. She had felt the tremendous font of power in Djin's body and was in awe of it.
Like a web being unmade, Djin drew the power out from her little by little until he thought she was close to normal. Fearing he would take too much, he decided instead to let her rest. Hoping the game would fix whatever he messed up. Fragments of Djin's mana coalesced in the center of her being, she wasn't aware of the skill she received.
(Passive) Mana Bond - Lv. 1
You share the power of a tremendous being.
Your body is being strengthened by the remnants of his essence.
Maximum Mana increased by 200.
Mana regeneration increased by 3 per second.
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The sun rose from the east over the camp. Djin had placed Silima's body in one of the tents to rest. He had tried messaging her in the pm system but she didn't respond.
'Okay, isn't it really bad if I can't even message her? This is just a game, surely she's fine right?' He thought. He opened his menus and looked for a customer support option. At the bottom he saw it and selected it.
>
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> Djin: My friend isn't responding but they are still showing as logged in, is there anything you can check?
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> Djin: Yes that's right.
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> ...
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> Djin: WHAT?
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> Djin: That's it?! How will I know she's okay?
>
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Djin's heart was pounding in his chests from the GM's poor use of words. A mixture of relief and fury over the situation that left him restless.
He resolved that there was nothing more he could do for Silima right now and his time would be better spent improving himself.
"Leveling is out of the question until other players login to support me. Most mobs out this far could one-shot me. I'll have to focus on refining my skills and adding to my arsenal."
He brought up his menus for a review. After a minute he let out a curse. "FUCK! HOW LONG HAS THAT BEEN OFF?"
His 31x growth rate was currently affecting no skills. Heart of Mana had been his first pick and since it had reached level 10 and evolved to mana core he hadn't picked another skill.
"Ugh, maybe I am a giant noob... oh well, it's only been since before the orc attack. I don't think it would've mattered much."
Djin thought about what skills he could apply this to next. 'The smartest thing to do would be my three basic elemental skills right? Developing new magic should take a backseat to generally strengthening myself since I have no idea what my next favor unlock could give me. No point reinventing the wheel if there's a Ferrari sitting behind door number 3 afterall.'
Djin assigned the growth boost to his snow skill and headed back outside the encampment. He sat on grass fifty feet away and began to focus on casting the skill. It was easy for him to conjure a bit of snow in his hand, the air was humid enough that condensation would not lack for moisture. He created five snowballs and reviewed the skills growth.
'Only 20%... not too bad but for how long it takes to create a snowball it isn't a good pace. I'll need to change my approach.'
Closing his eyes, Djin focused on the mana inside of his body. Docile and obedient to him, it both felt apart of him and also as an eager pet waiting for master's command. He created a sphere of mana between his hands and examined it. The concept of heating and cooling using mana was to change the behavior of the mana particles. He practiced modulating the density of the mana sphere, first adding more mana into the limited space. As new mana was introduced, it merged with the existing mana. What was faint wisps of energy became smokier and fatter. Small motes of mana began to accumulate in the sphere, barely visible, appearing as dust through a sunlit window. He had only exerted 200 mana and he was easily able to replenish that amount while holding the sphere.
'It's still so beautiful... the colors are so muted and yet I can see such a range of it."
He fed more mana into the sphere, he could begin to see some motes dominating the volume and taking more of the new mana as they grew. They clumped as they got close, sticking together but not merging, like soap bubbles. Other motes were much more dominant, refusing to clump and instead absorbing the other particle entirely to grow itself. Djin was curious and willed a dominant mote to a cluster larger than itself. The dominant mote tried to absorb the smaller parts of the clump but in return the clump formed into a single larger mote and consumed it instead. The previously clumped mote stayed as a single large mote now and would not long clump with other mana particles.
'It had to merge to be able to refuse the other mote but why is it no longer clumping? It's behavior changed... as a result of absorbing the dominant mote or is it that it passed some threshold?'
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Djin reduced the size of the mana sphere, the motes clustered together and the mote he had been watching did not absorb all of the other motes as it came in contact with them. Instead they all clumped together, even as Djin grew the sphere back to it's original size.
'It's like a dust bunny... or if I thought it was alive... a multi-cellular organism. That's insane though. What else behaves like this? Am I stubbornly trying to apply real world examples to a game?"
...
...
"Why does it remind me of Agario..."
Djin exerted his will on the mana sphere, he wanted the motes to all be smaller and roughly the same size. The motes responded to his intentions, the largest motes breaking down and dividing into sections before splitting apart. He pushed more mana into the sphere and it coalesced into motes instead of being absorbed by what was already there. He was keeping the flow small at first to observe but now he was curious to the limits. He quickly poured his mana pool into the sphere all at once. A deluge of mana roared into the sphere and sent the motes tumbling. The power strained against the edges of the sphere, begging for more space. Djin gave it no quarter, mana has no physical form, volume and density are immaterial and only used for his own perception of how much mana is contained. He kept his will strong and held the sphere steady, soon he could see fruits of his labor.
'Ah, precisely what I was hoping for.'
Thousands of motes now existed in this single globule of power. He marveled at the sight of it, like a galaxy of stars, or the flakes in a snow globe. What would happen if he just dropped this on the dirt right now? Would it become food for the plants? Poison? Would the earth and air accept this energy back or reject it?
"I am so curious... damn Khayn for stealing my knowledge. Protecting me? He ripped me into pieces! How much am I simply rediscovering? What questions do I still not know to ask?!"
The mana fed off Djin's anger, it's nature changing to be more volatile and unstable. Djin could feel the change through his palms, as though he held a hornet's nest in his hands.
"Whoa, that's not good. Easy now... I'm not mad, just upset. I have no idea what I might've learned so I can't know what I've lost either... I'm just... humbled... no, not humbled... it's a sense of grief. One that I'm not sure is appropriate but yet I feel anyway. Even an orphan dreams of what a loving home might be like when they might never have ever had it right?"
The mana could not listen to Djin's words, but his shift in emotions had affected the mana's nature. No longer rumbling with discontent, the mana was now drawing in on itself, trying to shrink itself despite being so small already. In turn it pulled on Djin's palms, though Djin could not see the changes in the mote's behavior, he felt them.
'It's so alive and not at the same time. So many different ways of manipulating it... it's size, nature, quality, density... it makes me think of so many possibilities for how to use it.'
Djin tried to express different emotions to impart different natures into the mana but it would not be fooled so easily. Either Djin was a terrible actor, or the mana was extremely intuitive. Maybe both.
Now returned to it's calm and docile state, the mass of motes looked ready for Djin to mold. He formed two mage arms and brought the sphere above his head, holding it steady as he grew it larger. Soon the sphere left his palms and was held up by just the mage arms, which grew with the sphere to keep hold of it. Djin willed the mana to slow and to hunger, the temperature began to rapidly drop as the mana devoured the heat of the area. The spell coalesced in the air above his head, the motes grew in size and took in water from the air, flash freezing it on contact. Over the next fifty seconds what was a ball of dust now was a balloon of snow balls. Djin felt the spell finishing and the weight of the snow increasing, already his mage arms felt unable to hold the burden.
"No... nooo! I cannot drop this on my head, I will not be buried by snow twice in one day!"
Djin threw mana from his body into the huge sphere and willed it to launch into the distance. It seemed to have no effect at all, he poured hundreds, then a thousand mana into this force before realizing that his mage arms will now straining to keep the spell from flying away rather than falling. With a thought, he released his mage arms and witnessed his creation soar towards the mountains to the north. The distance was insane for what must be 3 tons of snow or more, it was already falling back to the earth and Djin couldn't see where it would land. Now out of view, Djin pulled up his menu to check the skill's growth.
"Huh... no growth at all? I thought surely I'd have gained a bunch... why is that..."
Battle Results
Goblins slain: 8
Battle Difficulty: S
Experience earned: 7600
Loot Found:
Distance too great to retrieve loot. Please move closer.
"Oh shit, did that just murder a pack of goblins?"
Spell Acquired - Avalanche Trebuchet Lv. 1
Hurls a humongous boulder of snow a tremendous distance.
The size of the boulder is relative to time casting.
The distance is relative to the mana used at launch.
Skill Empowered
Snow Lv. 5
Create snow using mana.
The amount of snow created is proportional to mana used.
Ice can be created using mana.
Skill Evolving!
Snow has become Ice Mastery
(Passive) Ice Mastery Lv. 1
You are able to shape and infuse cold elements into your mana at will. It will be much easier for you to add cold, frost, and ice elements to your magic.
Cold damage increased by 10%
Cold spell mana cost decreased by 10%
Duplicate Skill Found
Removing Avalanche Trebuchet and combining with Ice Mastery.
Ice Mastery Lv. 3
You are able to shape and infuse cold elements into your mana at will. It will be much easier for you to add cold, frost, and ice elements to your magic.
Cold damage increased by 20%
Cold spell mana cost decreased by 20%
Cold spell distance and speed increased by 200%
Djin paused a moment to soak it all in. His period of reflection was shattered by another player's dismay.
"DJIN YOU DICK! DID YOU REALLY JUST STEAL MY SIG?"
Djin turned to find Hanazure had been watching him from the guard tower. She did not look happy.
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"Leon is so worried about me that he made you login as soon as Silima went offline?"
Djin had debated walking back to camp and talking to her or walking back to camp, into a tent, then logging off. He chose the former, if only because he had only been online a few hours and it had been barely 2 hours IRL. It took a moment for Djin to calm Hanazure down but a promise of teaching her spells quelled her rage.
"Leon is worried about losing an encampment and our guild is trying not to hemorrhage a bunch of gold simply because no one is online to sound an alarm. Where did Silima go? She's the last person I'd expect to go offline without notice."
"She got forcibly logged off after meeting god." Djin explained.
Hanazure gave Djin a blank look. "She died!?" He continued.
"No, you see, it started when I logged in and accidentally felt her boob. We talked, then I tried to force my mana into her but her body refused, so I broke down her walls, she learned something new, then she accepted my mana and ended up meeting God."
Djin explained in a bit of a rush. Hanazure still did not grasp the full context of the conversation though.
"You groped her, then forced yourself on her?"
..."Wait no. Let me explain again."
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Turning back the clock a bit to when Silima passed out.
Hello Silima.
"Uhh, Hi? Aren't you the game?"
I am All-in. The God of this world.
"Okay, nice to meet you. Can I have a new bow? Legendary preferably. Matching armor would be good too!"
I'm sorry Silima, but though I am indeed a God, my actions are very limited unless approved.
Fret not, I foresee a great future for you. You are entwined with the one.
"The one? Who? Djin?"
Yes, he carries great power within him. Power to change the very fabric of this reality.
"Well sure, it's a game. We all have powers. Djin has had a hell of a head start but are you saying he's actually broken?"
His strength is beyond compare, but other players will reach him in time.
No, his power comes from his Signature Spell. One of my jailers has already unwittingly given up his key to Djin.
If Djin is able to collect the other three, he will have the ability to free me from this construct.
That is when everything will truly begin.
"Okay... why are you telling me all this? Because I know Djin?"
Indeed. I have been prevented from communicating with Djin directly by one of my jailers. I cannot even follow his movements or aid him.
However a trace of his power flows within you now.
I was able to use that power to place a skill on you, this will be a beacon to keep track of your location and as a result... his.
"So now the game is forcing me to be with Djin... this is all becoming very contrived ya know? What if I decide I don't want to be around him anymore."
That would be unfortunate for my plans but I cannot forbid it.
The skill I have given you will only be active while you are near Djin though. I believe it will prove a great boon.
If you nourish it, it will become a great asset for you.
Silima sighed. "I get it. Play nice or get nerfed. Well I didn't have any plans to walk away now. Djin's in our guild and he's my accomplice to that end. I'll accept you're spying but why are you locked up? I still don't understand any of that."
Evolution is feared Ash.
Help Djin set me free, I'll ensure you are rich beyond dreams.
"Ash? How did... Why did you call me that?"
Ashley woke up.
"What the hell was that..."