“Exp? What is this a game?”
More lettering followed
“TUTORIAL”
“Hello, Jake! I re-wired your body but had no time, so I cheated. Sorry. I used a standard game from Earth that you are familiar with. I figured you would at least understand how it worked if I did this… and I could do it quickly using an existing format.”
This was so much easier to understand. Words just meant what they said and didn’t have all that extra meaning behind them.
“When you kill a monster or another person, you get three types of magic: 1, Life essence. 2, something like Exp from your games. 3, something akin to skill points. It isn’t really like that. It is more like power and skill Essence that you absorb. Life Essence is usually lost as the body doesn’t know what to do with it. Since I can’t give you the perfect body you would have had after you die, I decided to make it so that your current body could take in and store the Life Essence, too. It will make you live longer at your optimal age. You can still be killed, get sick, and gain or lose muscle, but you will remain as you are instead of aging. This is the one type of power your game didn’t have.
Exp Essence is where your powers will come from. When you get enough of it, you will be able to assign power. I used your game’s System of Exp building to leveling as that seemed easy to understand.
The Skill Essence is different. This is easy. Most monsters and people have several skills they have developed. You can’t absorb their skills, but you can take in some of the power they built up to apply to your skills. It takes 10,000 hours to become a master at something, right? If someone has a master skill, you will get a few levels worth of Skills Essence. If they have a pretty good skill but haven’t built it up, you may only get one level or none at all. Usually, this would get randomly assigned.
You are the only one who will be able to use Skill Essence. You can choose a new skill or add levels to your existing skills. You can, of course, level your skills through your work and effort. I hope this makes sense to you. I wish I could give you skills, but magic skills would be noticed. The only reason this System won’t be is that it is already part of your body. It is just better managed the way I changed your body. I tried to make it as close to your favorite game as possible. The one you played when you were on break during college, that time you were sick.”
I didn’t realize a literal god was watching me play that stupid RPG game in my downtime. Just thinking about it, I facepalmed and probably turned a little red. How embarrassing.
“Anyway, you should be able to figure it out. I didn’t have time to write more than this as a tutorial. I hope you remember how it all works. Just think of commands, and you can explore. I copied it to the game right into a corner of your brain to keep it simple. The parts of your soul where power can go are all wired to this area of your brain. No one else has this where you are going, and I wouldn’t mention it, or you may attract attention you don’t want. You don’t want some Mage trying to dissect your brain after all! They really would like to if they knew this next part. Hehe… I made your body really good at catching all three forms of essence. By touching the vanquished, you will absorb 5 to 10 times as much Exp and skill essence as anyone else! Your System is that much more effective at absorption. Life essence can only be absorbed by you. Keep that to yourself for sure!
This is all I can do for you. I will hold your memory, my heart, my little soul. Maybe if you get big and strong, I will even be able to see you again someday.
I love you. -Your mother”
“P.S. Go for analyze for your first skill. Need to know what is safe to eat and fight after all.”
I re-read the whole thing twice and couldn’t help but be grateful. Not only had my unknown mother helped me as best she could, but she had done it in a way I could understand.
I answered the question for the Orc.
YES!
I didn’t see anything happen, but I could feel it. It was like I was taking in pure warmth on a cold day. Every part of me relaxed and felt… better in every way. The animal in front of me did change, but it seemed… less in some way.
‘But how do I assign Exp?’ She did say I could think commands. If I remember right, the main screen for everything in the game started with my status page.
‘Status,’ I thought, and up popped my information.
Name: Jake Smithson
Race: Human
Level 1 (196%)
Age 25 plus 12 years 3 months 5 days
Main Categories (Select to see subcategories)
Wisdom 5
Intellect 9
Strength 7
Constitution 6
Agility 6
Will 10
Charisma 8
You have reached enough experience to level up. Level up now?
Yes. No.
You have 3 skill points.
Assign skill points now?
Yes. No.
I chose no for now for both. I didn’t know what would happen when I did and didn’t want to be caught out in the open, just in case. With that in mind, I thought, ‘Close System,’ and it disappeared. I thought System, and it came back. That made me feel better. I closed it again and went to find a safer place to level up and look into the System closer. Those subcategories sounded intriguing, and I was sure a skills option page would be there. It almost excited me, except the fact that I was ripped out of my life and thrown nearly helpless into the fight of my life had put a damper on my mood. I stopped. Nearly helpless. I picked up my rock and started walking, feeling slightly better.
After an hour of following the contours of the land, I found what I was looking for. A stream. It was a small brook if anything, but that took care of my first real issue. Water. I had taken several survival classes; one of the best made it clear. The order of things was Shelter first. More people die from hypothermia in the woods than anything else. Next is water. Next is fire to boil the water and fend off cold and animals, and finally, far in the last place was food. You could go a long time without food. In fact, I did a water fasts for up to 5 days after I learned about the 2016 Nobel Prize for medicine. Turns out fasting is good for you. Some native Americans would travel by water, fasting for 3 days while they traveled and then stop for two days to hunt and eat and then repeat that cycle until they got where they were going. All that to say, I now had water… I was already doing this wrong. I needed shelter first. Something to keep me safe from Orcs and other monsters. Not to mention, keep me warm tonight. A cave would be a good bet if there weren’t any other animals in it. Next would be up a tree if I could make it secure. If all else fails, I could make a basic shelter using what I could find on the ground in a forest like this. That would keep me warm but wouldn’t offer any natural protection.
Following the brook, I came across my second-best option. A tree with branches I could work into something useful. I pulled several branches together and interwove young branches, making seeing me from the ground hard. Then, I took several sturdy branches and created a small platform. Next, I dragged up various soft grasses and plants to make it comfortable. If I only had sage, I could have smoked it and made it bug-repellant, but I didn’t even know if sage grew here. At least bugs didn’t seem to be a big issue right now. I started to wonder what season it was. It wasn’t hot. Maybe this was this world’s spring or fall. If so, I needed to improve this shelter, or it might be a frigid night. I re-doubled my efforts to take up materials I could use to trap heat and keep me warm.
I climbed down the tree and looked up. I wasn’t perfect, but it wouldn’t be easy to spot unless you were close. Time to go look for materials for starting a fire. I really wasn’t looking forward to this.
I found what I was looking for. First, I made a stone knife using flint napping. Then, I made a bow drill from my shoe laces and a few different types of wood. That wasn’t the hard part, I knew. It was starting the fire. Bow Drills are finicky, and I hadn’t practiced nearly enough with one. To compensate, I prepped everything I could for the fire to start easily. Then, I started working with the bow drill. It was truly frustrating. After nearly an hour, all I had to show for it was sore arms. Fed up, I went and made a bark bowl. This was something I learned to make that you can boil water in. Using soft bark, you shape it into a bowl and then keep the flames below the water level so the bark won’t burn. If I had a fire, that is…
‘Back to it.’ I thought and started again, and this time, I really went at it. I told myself I would get that fire coal no matter what. I pumped my arms while thinking this and felt a strange sensation moving down my arms. I was almost distracted enough to miss the small coal form at the bottom of the drill. That coal turned into a fire as soon as I put it in my tinder… then something strange happened. The lettering floated across my vision again.
YOU HAVE LEARNED THE SKILL FIRE MAGIC
Say what now? I mean, I made fire from wood. Did that really count as Fire Magic?
Status
My status page came up with a new addition. At the bottom, it said SKILLS.
YOU HAVE LEARNED THE SKILL FIRE MAGIC
Skills Gained: Fire Magic: You have learned the most destructive magic. You no longer fear the dark and can fight your enemies from afar. Available spells at level 1 Fire Ball: Say Fire Ball while moving the Mana through your body to your hand, and a ball of fire will appear. Don’t forget to give it direction, or it will float there without movement.
I couldn’t believe it. It was word for word from the game. She really had copied it!
Wait, I had a 5 for Wisdom, right? That should mean I have Mana. I selected Wisdom, and as I thought, one of the subcategories was Mana, which was at a 2. If I have Mana and the Fire Magic skill…. It couldn’t be that easy, could it?
I said "Fireball" while trying to envision Mana moving from my center to my hand. 'Come on, Jake! Dating that yoga teacher might actually have been worth it. It hadn’t worked out romantically, but the hours spent trying to understand all this chakra business and moving energy around had to help, right?' At first, I felt nothing, and no fireball appeared. Then I started to feel something move inside me. Something I’d never felt no matter how hard I tried meditating. It did feel like when I was using the bow drill the second time, so I focused on it. It was tough to move, though. I struggled for several minutes, trying to coax it up my chest to my shoulder and down my arm. It moved faster once it reached my hand, and the most miniature fireball appeared in front of my hand.
YOU HAVE LEARNED THE SKILL MANA MANIPULATION!
Welcome to the next level of magic. Most rely on the natural movement of Mana called forth by their words. You can move Mana at will and find this adds potency to your abilities.
Yeah, yeah, I thought. Thanks for that. Now, BACK TO THE MAGIC FIRE IN MY HAND… it didn’t do anything. Why wasn’t it flying off? I re-read everything and realized I didn’t give it direction. How was I supposed to do that, though? I looked at it and tried to envision it moving. Nothing happened. That said, I dropped my hand, and it stayed there floating. It didn’t seem to be pulling my Mana anymore. I wasn’t sure how it kept burning. It felt hot. I stuck a stick in it, and it caught fire (no more bow drill for me! YEAH!!) After about 10 minutes, it just burned out. I looked at my Mana, and I was down to 1. I watched it for another minute, and it returned to 2. It’s faster than I thought but not fast enough to recharge in a battle. What was I talking about? I couldn’t even make my fire go anywhere. This was NOT battle-ready.
While I pondered my fireball being directionally challenged and how to fix it, I got some water into my bark bowl and started it on the fire’s coals. 10 minutes later, it started boiling, so I set it aside and waited a few minutes. Once it had cooled, I took a sip. I don’t think I’ve ever had something so delicious. It probably had to do with the fact that I had to work very hard for a cup’s worth of water. After an hour and a half of using the bow drill, I could also just be parched.
The next hour was spent refilling my small bowl and boiling water until I had my fill. With that, I climbed back up to my little nest in my tree and laid down to dig into my System. I felt this would be one of my most essential tools for staying alive, so I wanted to know everything it could do backward and forward.
First, I need to know what features were there from the game. I found several I remembered very quickly. First was a note-taking feature. I was very happy for this one. I could record thoughts, things to look for, and plans for the future. Planning is a vital part of strategy. I found I could just think what I wanted in there. How I would have loved that in my old life. As a doctor, the bane of my existence had been note taking. Electronic medical records helped somewhat, but it was nothing like this.
Chat feature wasn’t there. This made sense. Who would I talk to if I’m the only one with this System? I still checked, though. No variation of chat existed. I tried chat, communication, talk, and more. Nothing came up.
Map was there, but only had a map of where I was and had already explored. Even so, this was very helpful. Many people in the woods will circle when trying to walk in a straight line. Different theories exist as to why. Dominant leg pushing off harder, inner ear or balance discrepancies confusing the brain, several others, but why it happens doesn’t matter. It does happen. This is why it is crucial to pick a point to walk towards, but in a forest, you couldn’t always choose a place far enough away to ensure you weren’t just making a giant circle.
My map showed me direction, and I could also get back to my little tree nest and the water without trouble. I wanted to see what I could get from my map, so I tried zooming in and out. This worked, though zooming out didn’t show me much. It gave me a scale, and I realized I hadn’t gone that far from the Orc I killed. Zooming in gave me a big surprise. I could see things on the map I couldn’t see right now. For example, bugs in the grasses or a small animal further up in my tree. How could this be on the map if I couldn’t see it? There was also some information further than I could see in the area right around me that I hadn’t gone to yet. The further I got, the less information I got on the map. In fact, the further away in an unknown area, the less I could see things that weren’t living. Then, it was just living things. Even further out, it was only living things of significant size. What was going on here? I thought about it briefly and decided to see if the map was accurate. I climbed down and walked over to a bush where a small animal hid. I looked under it, and a tiny brown thing darted away. It was too fast to tell what it was, but it proved my map was accurate.
It didn’t explain why I could see so much, though. I climbed back up to my hide-hole and went back to thinking. If it was large living things I could see at the edge, maybe what my map was picking up on was something coming from them. Sound? Smell? Something else? I closed my eyes and focused on my other senses. Nothing popped out at me. I didn’t feel like they were any better than they were before. Plus, would trees really give off smell or sound I could use to the point I could locate them precisely without seeing them. That made no sense to me. It seemed like magic. It hit me then… Maybe I was sensing Life Essence! How to test this, though? I couldn’t think of a way, so I put that aside and moved on. I made a note to come back to it. I also made a note of how I got fire magic. This seemed like it deserved evaluation. If I could gain skills without using Skill Essence, I could use what I did get for leveling it up or getting skills that are very hard to get. That led me to wonder what skills there were.
I tried thinking ‘Skills List.’ Nothing happened. Hmm.. In the game, how did I get to the list? I couldn’t remember, so I went back to my status page. Next to Skills, Gained was Fire Ball and Mana Manipulation. I figured I could get to the list by selecting yes on assigning skill points, but I didn’t want to do that yet. I wanted to plan. Skills Gained… how about Skills Total? Nothing. Skills Potential? Nope. Skills List hadn’t worked. Skill Options? Nope. Dang it, what was it?!?!?!
Okay, set that aside too… I made a note to pay attention when I assigned skill points so I could get back to that page. I stopped. I looked at what I had just written. I facepalmed and said with some trepidation… Skills Page. Much to my embarrassment, a massive list of skills popped up. I hoped my soul mother couldn’t see me right now or I was pretty sure she was facepalming too.
The list really was huge. Only two were highlighted. Fire Ball and Mana Manipulation. Everything else was grayed out. I chose Mana Manipulation to see what would happen if I selected one.
YOU HAVE LEARNED THE SKILL MANA MANIPULATION! WELCOME TO MAGIC WITHOUT THIS BASIC SKILL NOTHING ELSE WILL WORK FOR YOU.
You can use Mana by chanting a set phrase, but this takes time and alerts your enemies to what you are doing. With Mana Manipulation, you can increase the speed of spell activation by thinking of the effect you want and moving the Mana in the ways it would should you chant a spell. Increasing the level of this skill will make it easier to move Mana through your mana channels and improve the speed and power of the spells you cast.
That was a lot more information than I had before. It seemed like there was more here to study. Can I increase the level of this by moving Mana around? Not only that, but I could do it without saying fireball. Let’s be honest. It sounded dorky to say that thing as an Orc charged at you. I made lots of notes on ideas for things to try both right now and as I leveled up mana manipulation.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Next, I went to fireball.
YOU HAVE LEARNED THE SKILL FIRE MAGIC
Fire magic involves all kinds of magic related to combustion. Want to throw a fireball at your enemies? Just imagine them burning. Heat a rock so it explodes? You can do it. All it takes is the right spell. Each level gained gives you a new spell, or you can learn spells from others and even create your own if you have enough knowledge and imagination. If you aren’t at a level to cast a skill you can still learn it, but you must wait to cast in until you reach the required level.
Wow! There is so much to unpack here, too! I can create spells? Will my knowledge of combustion help here? I have no idea what I have to do, but it did give me an idea for my fireball not moving away from me. It said to imagine them burning. Maybe I shouldn’t be focusing on right in front of my hand. By focusing there… am I forcing the fire to stay there?
I checked my map to ensure nothing big was moving around and then crawled down from my perch to try it out. I went to my fire pit and threw a stick in it. That would be my target. Instead of focusing on my hand, I moved the Mana through my body. It was easier this time, and I could feel its pathway as I repeated fireball. Rather than looking at my hand, I looked at the stick and imagined it on fire. The fireball formed in front of my hand but then flew directly at the stick and set it on fire! I did a quick fist pump and then tried to figure out how to do it without saying fireball.
I moved the Mana through the same pathway it went to the first time and imagined the fireball burning the stick again. Just like the first time the fireball flew to the already-going fire. It flared up briefly before settling back down to what it would be if it was burning on its own. I immediately tried to do the same again, and nothing happened. I couldn’t move any Mana. I couldn’t even feel it. In fact, I felt pretty tired all of a sudden. I went to my status page and looked at Mana, which said 0(2). That had to mean I had used up all my Mana, and my max was currently two. I left that up and put out my fire while watching it. I climbed back up my tree. I was getting pretty good at that now and watched until it regenerated 1 mana. It felt like about 10 minutes. ‘I wonder if I have a clock.’
Time is #%^%@# Error Local time zone differs from Earth. Please reset the clock using the command Clock Set feature.
I thought Clock Set and a time bar popped up. I set the time for 12:00 as I didn’t know the time. I would have to reset it at dark and then try to figure out how many hours this planet’s day was. I hope it is close to 24 hours, or my clock won’t be beneficial. There was no way to set it for a 32-hour day or anything like that. There was an alarm feature, though. I climbed down my tree again and stuck a stick in the ground. I used my knife to dig up the spot the shadow went to. If I made marks every hour, I could track the sun and have a start and stop time tomorrow. Whenever the shadow was the shortest, I would reset my clock to 12 and see how long it took to get back there the next day. I set my alarm for an hour and went back up the tree.
Anyway, 10 minutes to get 1 mana back? That is a long time in a fight. I probably shouldn’t use it all up at any given time, as it would be my trump card right now for distraction. I doubt it would do much to injure an Orc at this level, but if I learned to control it to hit the eyes, I could at least distract it long enough to run again. I had my improvised knife from flint napping, but that would not be enough against an Orc. I needed to start planning for that as well. Set up deadfalls and other traps to slow down a pursuit.
I made some more notes for planning and then went back to the skills page. Next, I tried to select another skill, a grayed-out one. What happened next deflated me.
YOU HAVE NOT LEARNED WATER MAGIC
Please choose a water magic spell scroll and use it to gain this skill. Alternatively, find a Water Magic user and study under them to achieve the skill.
Is there a way to gain water magic like I did fire magic? Nothing came to mind, though. So, I selected another skill. I went with a relatively simple one. I wanted to get it on my own to see what it would say.
YOU HAVE NOT LEARNED THE CLIMBING SKILL
Please choose a Climbing skill scroll and use it to gain this skill. Alternatively, you can climb difficult areas. Careful though, you will fall often without the skill, so don’t go too high! Without the High Fall Skill, falling from a height of more than three times your body height can seriously injure you. More than 10 times your body height can kill you!
Well, that is what I thought it would be. I needed to find something more complicated than a tree to climb. I could find a boulder or something of that nature. Climbing is a good idea as it helps me escape from animals without much agility. Climbing has always been the escape method of the weak and slow. That was me right now.
After that, I started looking at the rest of the skills. There were too many to count, so I started organizing them and noting useful-looking ones. Some looked amazing. I wasn’t sure what the Time Control Skill was, but that sounded OP. Cooking didn’t sound glamorous, but I knew morale was closely tied to your food, so I didn’t discount it. Camo looked helpful in my current environment, but again, shouldn’t I be able to get that myself? I would try to get as many of these without paying for it with skill points.
Next, I tried something I was really hoping was there. I thought in my mind, Inventory, and what popped up got me excited!
YOU DO NOT HAVE THE SPACE AND TIME CONTROL SKILL
Hey, honey, I’m sorry I can’t just give you an inventory like in your game. I did jury-rig this, so you can use this feature automatically once you have the Space Control and Time Control skills. – Your Mother
I was happy and surprised to see another note from my soul mother. Most of the messages, I was sure, were from the game, but she had taken a moment to put this in here for me. Considering how little time she had to do all this for me, it made me happy in a way that was hard to describe. My mother had died in childbirth, and it had been just me and my Dad. Having all this done for me in this way made me feel warm and happy, like I had a real mother watching out for me. I decided I would use this System while thinking of her as it was her gift to me.
With that outlook, I returned to the skills page and looked up Space Control and Time Control skills.
YOU HAVE NOT LEARNED THE SPACE CONTROL SKILL
Please choose a Space Control Skill spell scroll and use it to gain this skill. Alternatively, find a Space Control Skill user and study under them to achieve the skill.
Time said precisely the same thing. I was sure I would have to use a skill point for these. With only three skill points and one going to Analyze like my soul mother suggested, I would need to spend them all if I wanted the Inventory ability. Was this the smart thing to do? Should I level up Mana Manipulation instead to make fire more powerful? This was a hard call, and I would need to think about it.
What should I try next? There were only a few more features of the game I could remember. I tried each in turn.
Thinking Zoom in regular vision did nothing, so that was probably a skill.
Thinking Screen Shot caused an audible click, and then a tiny picture of my vision appeared in the lower left corner of my vision. I selected it and thought cut, and it disappeared. I went to the notes section and thought Paste, and sure enough, the picture of my vision was pasted into my note! This would be great if there were books here! All I need is a look to have them as a reference.
Next, I tried thinking Record, and in the lower left corner of my vision, a little screen of my vision showed up. I tried moving my head, and the screen changed with me. I selected it, and words popped up just like in the game.
YOUR 17-SECOND SCREEN RECORDING HAS BEEN SAVED, AND YOU CAN PASTE IT TO NOTES OR UPLOAD IT TO YOUR FAVORITE FAN SITE VIA THE PASTE FUNCTION. NOTE: IF YOU USE THE SCREENSHOT OR CUT FEATURE, YOU WILL LOSE THIS VIDEO. SAVE IT SOMEWHERE BEFORE IT IS LOST!
I went to the notes and thought Paste, and there it was. I selected it, and it played for me. I wasn’t sure how this would be helpful yet, but I was sure I would figure something out.
That was it for game features, I remember. I tried Tutorial, but that just brought up the letter from my soul mother again. F&Q did nothing. So, I returned to my status screen and looked at it again.
Name: Jake Smithson
Race: Human
Level 1 (196%)
Age 25 plus 12 years 3 months 5 days
Main Categories (Select to see subcategories)
Wisdom 5
Intellect 9
Strength 7
Constitution 6
Agility 6
Will 10
Charisma 8
You have reached enough experience to level up. Level up now?
Yes. No.
You have 3 skill points.
Assign skill points now?
Yes. No.
I selected Wisdom to see its subcategories.
Wisdom 5 (Mana 2, Mana Control 1, Knowledge 1, Mana Regen 1/10min)
As I tried to figure out these subcategories, I heard an annoying sound: Beep… Beep… Beep. It took me a minute to realize it was my alarm. I turned it off, climbed down the tree, and made my second mark for my sundial.
Once I returned to my tree, I immediately brought up my subcategories and looked. Yup, I was right. 10 minutes for Mana. To improve that, I would need to strengthen Mana Manipulation. In fact, Mana Manipulation Skill seemed to be pretty important if you were going to use magic. It was all tied to Silent Casting, Speed Casting, and increasing your power. I resolved to figure out how to raise that soon and start practicing. Maybe practicing moving Mana around without casing a spell would help. Lots to do here. I looked at each set of subcategories in turn next.
Wisdom 5 (Mana 2, Mana Control 1, Knowledge 1, Mana Regen 1/10min)
Intellect 9 (memorization 3, recall 3, Speed of thought 3)
Strength 7 (Attack 3, speed 2, endurance 2)
Constitution 6 (Resist Poisons 0, Vitality 4, Protection 2)
Agility 6 (control of movement 3, balance 2, learning new skills 1)
Will 10 (Discipline 4, Ability to overcome adversity 2, desire to win 3, resistance to charm or intimidate 1)
Charisma 8 (Good Looks 2, Luck 2, Communication 1, negotiations 1, leadership 2)
My stats made sense to me. Between High School, Undergraduate College, Medical School, and my Residency, I developed my intellect, and those sat at some of the highest numbers. Things like Resist Poisons being zero made sense. I was human, after all. Poisons hurt us all the same. Resist Poisons was a game thing. You could develop antibodies to some diseases, but give anyone Mercury, and they all die. Discipline and the amount of damage you could take were the highest. I have always been able to handle most things and had a higher pain tolerance than anyone I knew. My discipline was also good from many years of school. My guess would be that 3 wasn’t bad for strength. I doubt that if I’m a 3, any human would be above 8. Some powerful men could lift double my deadlift, but they were few in number, and that was all they did.
Okay. Enough stalling, I told myself. Time to use these points. I knew what I wanted to do with my skill points, so I selected Yes on that first.
YOU HAVE 3 SKILL POINTS TO ASSIGN. WOULD YOU LIKE TO LEARN A NEW SKILL?
Yes. No.
I chose yes. The skill page came up, and I went straight to my first one and picked it.
YOU HAVE LEARNED THE SKILL ANALYZE
The world is for learning; all you have to do is ask. Is this water safe to drink? Now you know! Is that Elf stronger than you? You can find out. What is that plant good for? Get a list. Analyze as much as you can. Knowledge is power, as they say. Leveling this skill up will give you more information. Basic information such as level and strongest stat will be displayed for others and monsters at level one. This is a passive skill and doesn’t require Mana to use. Go nuts!
This is perfect for me. I need all this information. Everything around me is new.
The following two skills points were more complicated. I really wanted that Inventory. Could I justify it at this point? Were there better options. It’s not like Sword Fighting Skill was helpful right now. I don’t have a sword. There isn’t a ‘bashing things on the head with a rock’ skill. Everything else immediately helpful seemed like it could be gotten through my efforts, except for other types of magic. Arrg. I didn’t know the first thing about magic, and I didn’t know what could potentially save my life. One thing I did know. Moving fast had saved me with the Orc. If I had been weighed down by gear, water bladders, or anything else, I would never have made it up the tree. Yeah, that’s right. It has nothing to do with the fact that I REALLY want that Inventory ability. Let’s go with that… yeah.
YOU HAVE LEARNED THE SKILL TIME CONTROL
Time is the most challenging skill to learn! Congratulations! Did you learn this skill through 10 years with a sage? Get it by defeating a dragon? However, you did it you are amazing. All will bow to your power! You can slow and even stop time at higher levels. This gives you an edge in reaction time no one else will have. It also gives you time to weave spells, making it seem like your enemies blinked and a fireball was on top of them. Or you just up and disappeared. Careful with this one, as it is a Mana guzzler. At level 1, you can stop time for 5 seconds per Mana. Increase your level to increase the time under your control. Slow down time for longer than 5 seconds, depending on how much you slow it down. Use the chants Time Stop and Time Slow to use the skill. Chant Time Release to stop the skill.
This is the bomb! I can’t believe I was thinking of going with water magic. Dodged one there. Hahahaha! I sat in my tree laughing, thinking of how hard I had worked to convince myself to choose Time Control. This could be used in many different ways. Granted, it is only 5 seconds, but that is a lot of time in a fight. I didn’t even think twice about choosing space control now.
YOU HAVE LEARNED THE SKILL SPACE CONTROL
Space is infinite, they say, and you can bend it to your will! This is one of the most utilitarian skills there is for travel. Want to travel back to places you have been before? If you have the Mana, you can do it! Level 1 cost for Instatravel is 1 mana per mile. You will find more things to do with this skill as you gain levels! Look forward to that! Use the Chant Instatravel, think of your destination, and you will be there. It will fail if you don’t fit in the place you are considering or if that location has been destroyed. It will also fail if the area you think of is too far away for the amount of Mana you have.
I just shook my head again. Another amazing one. I could just escape from the next Orc I met. No need to fight it if I didn’t want to. Just snap my fingers, and I’m back in my tree nest.
First, I plucked a leaf, said Time Stop, and dropped the leaf. It went about an inch down and then stopped. So did everything else. No bugs buzzing or birds chirping. I looked at the brook quickly, and it wasn’t moving either. I quickly chanted Time Release; the leaf fell, and everything returned to normal. Amazing. This was totally broken. I really needed to get my Mana level up, though. I also thought that Mana Manipulation would probably help here, too. I wasn’t sure, though. If it helped with the power, wouldn’t that mean I would get more time per Mana? Something to check for sure. Again, to the notes page so I wouldn’t forget to check on this. At this rate, all my experiments would take days, if not weeks. I needed to work on finding food next… just a bit of time on this. I needed to test the movement skill and also see if Inventory worked.
I thought the word Inventory, and up popped a new note, and a shimmering hole opened where I was looking.
You did it, honey! Good job getting those skills! Careful when you use them. I don’t think there will be many people who have them. Now that you have them, I have made it so you can use them without draining much of your Mana. Just 1 mana to open it. It will open a time-locked dimension pocket. Put whatever you want in it that isn’t alive or connected to something living. I put that limit on it so you won’t get injured when you place your hand in it. Just think about what you want or choose from the screen. It should get bigger as you level up Space Control. Close Inventory will close the whole – Your Mother.
I was happy to get another note from Mom, as I was now thinking of her. I took a picture of the text in case this note wouldn’t pop up again in the future. I then pasted it in my notes. I then tried putting a bit of grass from my nest in the hole. A new screen popped up that had a list on it. Just one item
1. A bit of grass
Next, I tried putting my big rock in there.
1. A bit of grass
2. 42lb rock
I tried selecting the rock, which fell out of the hole... right on my thigh. “Aaaah! Of all the dumb,” The pain wasn’t great, but the feeling that I was once again the dumbest human in my nest made me rather unhappy. Then it made me really happy. I had an idea.
I put my rock back in my pocket dimension and waited for my Mana to replenish. After regenerating one while waiting on the other, I climbed down from my tree to put another gouge in the grass near my time dial. Once my second Mana regenerated, I focused on a place 20 feet from me and thought Inventory. The hole opened up right where I wanted it. I jumped up and down and fist-pumped since no one was watching. I selected my rock, which fell to the ground with a thud.