Albert returned from a morning spent at the village of Elvenhome, back to the ‘real’ world. It wasn’t like Elvenhome was not a real place, but compared to the bleak gloom of his house, it felt like he had spent the whole morning in a fairy tale. Doing nothing but basking in the sun, walking around in nature, chatting and eating with Elves around a cozy campfire. Not thinking about magic or the system for a while. Not obsessing over what happened and worrying about its consequences.
A much welcome break, but after he was back it was to be expected that his house, in a cold and dark afternoon of an early October with anomalous weather, felt like depression. But that was not the reason why he felt this bad. Or, at least, it was only a minor reason why he did.
Marc was not answering the phone. No matter how many messages, no matter how many calls, no matter how many times Albert tried to contact his friend, he didn’t answer. It was worrying. Especially because there was no way to know whether he was taking the whole kidnapping situation well or not. In addition to the already stressful situation, the person who eventually went there to rescue him had not been Albert but his mother. She had been the first human being Marc saw after being imprisoned in a CARF cell for more than an entire day.
Not him. His mother. Who, he knew well, was not the gentlest of people when it came to these things. She was more pragmatic and to the point, and if she felt that Marc could be a threat in the future… well. There was no way to tell what she might have done if that was the case. Surely Marc wasn’t telling. Perhaps he would never tell. Perhaps he would always claim that all went well and fine, and that there was nothing to worry about, only to then fall into a depression with no way out. Like Albert had seen happen in many television shows and stories. Like he knew happened in the real world as well.
Never had he thought it could be something that involved him this closely. So near to him. Inside his inner circle of friends.
This only cemented the idea that it should have been him to save his friend, but he had collapsed from exhaustion soon after he managed to kill PsyOps and save his parents. Which was nothing to scoff at, but he doubted Marc cared. If he even knew, that is.
In the end, this lack of responses only made Albert feel more isolated. Yes, he had his family he could count on now, which was not a thing before. But he felt completely alienated from his friends, after the disastrous attempt at showing them his magic at the café and all that entailed, and now that Marc was going radio silent on him.
He knew, from his mother, that Marc had to undergo not one but two vetting processes before he was released and could return back home. One by her, and one by the HDF. They had to make sure that he wouldn’t talk about classified secrets, about aliens and about magic threats that put the whole world at risk. It didn’t matter that all the threats were very real: they all needed to remain buried.
He could not imagine what those ‘vetting’ processes must have been like.
“You should be thankful that PsyOps is dead, if anything.” His mother also said. “Or I doubt they would have released him at all.”
He shook his head to clear away the bad thoughts. There was no use in overthinking.
Hey, let’s meet up at my place when you are free. Let me know in advance so I can buy snacks.
Albert hit send and put the phone away. He was worried, but there was no use in overthinking. And the only way to not overthink it was to find something to do.
“Let’s have a look at all the quests I could do, shall we?”
[Quest: Eidetic Memory.]
* Isolate the parts of the brain involved with magically storing information.
* Reward: Analysis Mode skill video.
[Quest: Unlimited Power!]
* Create an offensive skill. Bonus reward if it’s lightning from your fingers.
* Reward: 3 Gold Tokens.
[Quest: Arrays start.]
* Create a mana-gathering array.
* Reward: Book: ‘Magical arrays for dummies’.
[Quest: Alchemy start.]
* Create a magical alloy.
* Reward: Book: ‘Alchemy for dummies’.
[Quest: Potions start.]
* Create a simple potion.
* Reward: Book: ‘Potions for dummies’.
[Quest: Body.]
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* Level up your body with magic.
* Reward: gain better insight when looking at your inner mindscape.
[Quest: Iperborea reborn.]
* Revitalize the Iperborean seed and grow a new Elventree.
* Reward: Spatial Storage ring.
[Quest: Leviathan Diversion I]
* Acquire 25 kilograms of pure elemental iron.
* Step 1/?? for the construction of the Time Severed Containment Field to house the Eggs.
* Reward: Skill autolearn: Earth Shard.
[Quest: Daily Challenge – Time Management Skills.]
* Bullet Time has been a core skill for you for a long time now, but you never managed to upgrade it. Find a way to improve it, and bring it to level 2.
* Reward: Teleportation points added to Map: Quadrangle and Major City centers within 200km.
A truly staggering amount of stuff to do immediately diverted all of his attention away from worrying about the real world. He started to look for an easy quest to complete to get the dopamine going, one that wouldn’t be too difficult and that would also offer a good enough reward once completed. He checked the phone. He had around five hours of alone time before his mother came back from the Quadrangle. He checked the phone again and noticed that there were no notifications. This time he barely thought about Marc.
Wait. I still have a quest autocompletion to cash in, don’t I? From that quest… Leviathan Stirs?
[It was Leviathan Unveiled.]
Right. Huh? System?
No reaction this time. But the system had spoken to him, for the second time now.
Albert waited for a few more seconds, then started prompting the system in various ways, but it didn’t react in the slightest. Deciding that he didn’t want to investigate it – a feeling that didn’t feel right but at the same time didn’t feel very important to ponder about – he went on to choosing which quest he wanted to skip. The answer was obvious, of course.
“Autocomplete Eidetic Memory.”
[Quest: Eidetic Memory complete.]
The promised skill video appeared without delay. This time it was something like a media player window, with a title saying “Analysis Mode Skill Video take 3” and a vibrant neon blue border. After a moment, the faux-Albert appeared in his usual strange sorcerer robes, chewing onto something akin to a licorice stick.
“Consciousness is the precondition for experience. It is the space in which everything happens: thoughts, emotions, sensations. The illusion of the self. Consciousness is unchanging, not influenced by the experiences that appear in it. It simply is. The next time a thought arises, or a sensation happens, try to notice whether it is pleasant or unpleasant and notice how none of that influences the condition that is consciousness. Suffering is very much a choice.”
Almost to the point. Albert wondered whether the video was tailored to his current specific psychological profile or not.
Altern-Albert went on. “What you perceive is not reality. I know, I know. It’s a tough pill to swallow, especially for a materialist like you. But that’s why I’m here to help you. To break the shackles of categorization and perception. You need to realize that all you think you know about reality is nothing more than an interface, a way that you categorize and interpret what your senses perceive.”
“You need to come to terms with the fact that actual reality is as inscrutable and mysterious as anything can ever be, radiant and luminous in its particular quality of just being present. Objects, tastes, thoughts… they are all just categories. A way for your brain to sort through the vast amount of data, discarding most of it, making sense of the rest.”
“If you want to learn about the world, if you want to remember the world for what it is, you need to first see how it all comes to be. Inside your mind.”
“Everything exists in space. Somewhere out there. You can see places far away without having to move from your house, you can now teleport across vast distances and move through time. Well, you could move through time. It’s not important. Every time you think about something you think about where it is relative to you, or to something else that you know. If you were to be someone who believed in god, then the question would be: where? Everything exists by reference of their being in space.”
“The reality of something seems to suggest its existence in space. That’s why other things appear more abstract to us. In what sense does a number exists?”
“Does it perhaps exist in virtue of its relationships to other numbers? What is the number five? Four plus one, ten divided by two, the square root of twenty-five. Where is it in space? What is the physical representation of its reality? Does it even exist?”
“Or is a number nothing but a series of relationships?”
“It feels so strange because our sense of reality is so bound up with the sense of space. And time hovers over it like a ghost. It is the abstraction we make when we are presented with the reality of change. That the things we care about are not really things, but processes. What is friendship? A career? Health? These are not things, but processes.”
“You have begun to dispel the illusions of your mind, to see how weak they are once you peer through and see what’s on the other side.”
Suddenly, the Albert in the video looked directly into the eyes of the Albert that was over here. Of the Albert who thought was the real one of the two. A sense of superiority that didn’t seem to hold up to the piercing gaze.
“The only coincidence of space and time that is meaningful is attention.”
Then the Albert in the video looked away, and it was like a bubble had burst. The room, having faded from perception all around Albert, returned with a rush of sounds and sensations. Imposing itself as something that was here, now.
“Picture something that you like, a location in space like a restaurant or an object. What really is meaningful to you is the connection, not the object itself. What really matters is how it makes you feel when you look at it, when you give it attention. Not its mere existence. Its significance is its relationship to you, and this relationship is mediated by attention, and nothing else.”
“You are only as free as your attention is. If you are lost in thought, can you really claim to be free?”