Waking up, I'm in the same bed as the last few times I've woken up, I was kinda hoping this would be a dream. Several days have since passed since Abcier arrived. I’ve learnt the Coan family's names through miming like in a Tarzan movie.
Malter is the Dad, Epego is the Mum and Coan the son. Yes, that does make the kids name Coan Coan. Apparently it's a tradition of some kind to name the first born son the family's last name.
We are also on a giant island, not sure about the size but it's massive and used in farming. Not Australia's size massive but definitely big. Tasmania sized maybe? The farms here are all owned by the Coan family and Malter is the 3rd son of one of the main family branches and here they mostly farm fish as we’re right on the ocean and have the best currents.
This extended family is basically a self sustaining country to the point there have been discussions about cessation from their home country. (Casupan which when pronounced correctly sounds close to Capsaicin.)
There are a bunch of workers and a doctor but no Dr Rath. Turns out he and Abcier are from the continent. Speaking of there is only one giant pangea continent with the only large island being this one (Called Scekipeta Wub Gzghy or Farmers Rest Island if my translations right) if you don’t count the mostly unexplored antarctica like ice-masses at the North/South poles or some tiny islands. Only people who live there are pirates apparently.
The Institute is also just as bad if not worse than I thought. Apparently they got started back something like 3000 years ago as some kind of Historians and ended up being more of a multi-governmental scientific research centre for everything you can think of. (Kinda cool cause, well I always wanted to be a mad scientist growing up.) But which unfortunately includes OutWorlders and oh boy do they have a history.
Apparently there is a bunch of OutWorlders who arrive on this world (Which oh boy I’ll go into that in a bit.) each year in one of the Domains and the gods make sure they end up in the right Domains suited for them. But sometimes as OutWorlders either don’t show up on Land or get caught before they get known by a government or become popular, people think they get disappeared.
Full on conspiracy theory stuff and I’m stuck in the middle of it, some people even think that ordinary people also get taken in mistaken as an OutWorlder and oh boy its like Alien Abduction conspiracy the things I’ve heard.
And getting into that bit there are some who say it's either a one OutWorlder a year thing for a Domain, or over all Domains it's one per year or it's multiple over all Domains, it's crazy! And as there are so many just in Lands recorded history who either created countries, started wars or just caused general mischief that some people WANT the Institute to find them. Like what!
Also, Also there is a massive contention between the Domains for what this World should be CALLED! It mostly boils down to having which Domain in front of the others. Something like:
Planet: SkyLandSea or its best translation of it. Till they decide on a name (which might never happen let's be honest) I’ma just gonna call it Dirt till I get more used to the language or if there is an alternative.
Learning about them, their history and the outside world at large is cool and all but it's just a distraction from the decision that I need to make…
Like I am religious and believe in God and all that, but for all I know this could be me in a coma, this could be me lying in a hospital bed just chilling. This could be hell and torture and I could never see my family again. Wow Abcier was not lying when he said the mental manipulation would wear off. Can understand why but I’m still kinda pissed about it.
Like, on Earth we believed that magic is not real and dabbling in the occulty stuff is frowned upon and sinful, ghosts don’t exist, people go to heaven or hell, etc. but like, what do I decide?
Either I don’t use magic while I’ve had it used upon me multiple times at this point for healing and have a better chance for the Institute to grab me if I can’t defend myself or I use magic and potentially get in trouble with the Man Upstairs.
These are kinda the Cliff-Notes for my thoughts over that week, going on and on around in circles thinking about this, trying to remember what I’ve been taught, what I believe what might be the right thing to do or the Right thing to do.
Ultimately, I’ve only got a few days left till Abcier comes back so I spend the days thinking while on the beach. Talking to myself, sometimes to Coan or Epego, running my thought process through my head. Even though they don’t understand, they are still willing to listen… Well, Epego listens, Coan tries to copy me in crappy English and makes funny faces to make me laugh when I look even a little sad or quiet.
I think he just wants to have a bit of fun with the guy he’s now living with and I will admit it does take my mind off things for a bit.
But that day is getting closer and closer, and after doing a whole bunch of soul searching I came to a very hard decision. I don’t want to make it sound shallow, like this explanation only took what a couple of paragraphs? It only took that long cause I decided not to bore you with pages and pages of convoluted thoughts and well, it certainly took a lot of thought. There's a reason you don’t see religious protagonists in Fantasy Web Novels that have gods in them, it’s too hard to write sometimes if the person is from our little patch of green near Sol.
But I made my decision, I will eat that cake and pay for its consequences by doing my very best to stay myself in this world, to keep my values and find a way home to ask someone who might have the Right answer. Who? Well I don't know but guess I'll find out when I get back. Yeap, I’m an eternal optimist, I will get home no matter what happens. And to do that I’ll need Magic, Power. Not from demons or monsters or big balls of magic that gained consciousness somehow through some deus ex machina or whatever but from me.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I start planning, brainstorming, thinking and all those other words you might find in the Thesaurus.
What kind of Powers should I go for? I have seen my fair share of Superhero movies, Anime, Books with Superheros, Video Games and D&D so I should plan what sounds good. Oh yea I need to explain how Powers work here.
Ready for a text wall?
Ok so let's start at the beginning: There is mana in the air that has different density at different elevations. Biological things have a “Well” (Mana Storage) and Network (Kinda like that Chakra Network from Naruto) which store and move the Mana around the body. Without those two the mana is damaging to biology. Think extreme radioactivity.
The Well stores this energy somehow, even the book doesn't say how but probably Power (the god, this is gonna get confusing) micromanaging things. It then interacts with the mind to produce Powers. I can increase the amount I can store and use by training my Well and Network, somehow.
Basically there are four main different types of Powers and one subtype:
1. Magic gifted by a God. Gifted Power
2. Magic created by the person. Creation Power
3. Magic taught to students. Taught Power
1. Subset is contract magic which prevents Taught Power from being used after leaving a job. Government/Institute have a law that if refused to or unable to remove contract magic that Institute must do it for free.
4. Magic stolen from users using spy/infiltration/information techniques. Stolen Power. Cursed to only be able to steal if you learn exactly how to replicate it. Like how a Taught Power is passed down. Stolen Power is not as powerful as it's original.
1. Stolen Powers also relate to Magical Archeology which sounds awesome!
The Subtype is called Abilities where you can make a single Power do multiple things. For example: If the Aang from Last Airbender were here, him being the Avatar and who can manipulate the four main elements is a single Power while stuff like Lava/Blood/Metal bending, Seismic Sense and Flight would be considered Abilities.
I currently have 1x Gifted Power being Body and Mind Protection. This power has multiple things going for it and according to the book on Powers, a Gifted Power is specifically catered to the individual and their understanding. This is especially true for Outworlders, As more and more of it unlocks I can get more info but right now it can do this:
Gifted Power: Body and Mind Protection - Appears as System Interface.
Protection of Body - Stops injuries from affecting me and affecting others. I.e. I have video game character health where I can get damaged but it won't appear on my body. It is also like a biohazard suit where stuff from my body like bacteria won't affect the populace and vice versa up to a point.
Protection of Mind - Similar to above, will protect my mind/brain from too much damage. Allows me to better understand languages and foreign concepts.
System Interface:
* MP/HP - I have a HP and MP system that is tied to the well and the Gifted Power. So far my “stats” are MP: 50 - HP: 100
* Map Mode - So far very limited as I haven’t seen too many maps and so have a small map of where I’ve been on the farm.
* Settings - Basically, allows me to change how it looks so far.
* Auto Translation - Ok so this is a fun one. If I learn a word or sentence in a language it gets translated for me and so when I go to say that word it will say the learnt word and not English. I can also set this to be different languages or leave it as English so long as I think about it before or while I’m saying it. It's very tricky to do but I’m slowly getting the hang of it. It won't translate text or writing so I’ve got to learn these weird glyphs.
The more I use it the more it will unlock, that and if I get more Mana into my “Well” as they call it.
Also there's a ranking system for everything here cause of course there is. The ranks go from F, the lowest creatures like Bacteria up to SSS and goes like this. This is the translated, Earth like version, but the different ranks are named after specific people in history who did something at or for these ranks.
gods.
SSS - The single most powerful people on the planet.
SS -
S -
AAA -
AA -
A - Abcier
BBB - Dr Rath
BB -
B - Malter Coan (Dad), Epego Coan (Mum)
CCC -
CC -
C - The average low powered man/monster. - Me now.
D - The average, unpowered person > 18 or < 80. - Me from Earth.
E - Average beast of burden or unpowered child < 18 or over 80. - Coan Coan.
F - Lower creatures, insects and normal bacteria.
So get this, at D rank I can only gain 1x Power, but at C I can get 4x and at CC and CCC I can get 1x more each until I get up to B where I can 4x more again and it continues like this till SSS for up to 25 possible Powers that a body can handle.
Also! I can choose to either sacrifice a potential Power to make my other Powers even more powerful OR get another Power.
Now these Powers I can get or make more powerful/upgrade is not limited to Powers for fighting, but can be any type of Power, everything from cooking and cleaning to blowing up mountains.
As I said there's a ranking system for everything here which follows that format from earlier, everything from different currencies, profession rankings, hell even food stalls and restaurants are ranked like this. Goodbye Michelin Stars.
This ranking is also for magic items of which there are too many so I’ll talk about that some other time. Ugh there's so much crap to preface. I haven’t even gotten on to the different races that live here but I'll save that for another time.