28th January. 0020 RE.
I'm a few days late in writing this, but here goes:
It was like any other day in Eternia. More news of ReCorporation's failures came in the morning as I returned from a three-day hunt. I waited at the gates for Kevin, as I knew he would keep to the set time and be there. It was going to be fun showing him the wolf I'd caught.
As expected, Kevin got angry that I did better than him and tried to hit me, failing spectacularly by falling after a brief chase. I took him to Tim's as he was the best doc I knew. There was only a small bruise, so Tim said he only needed to disinfect it with some hot water.
There were a few children over at Tim's place listening to his stories when I came in, so I decided to take them on a tour through the town. Although there was some fear of me at the start, all of them other than a girl named Caris got used to me quickly enough. I took em through a tour of my house, where I realised Caris hates strangers because she's an orphan. Having been in that situation myself before, I decided to get her to open up to me, and take her in with the rest of us if possible. Evan, a tiny guy who seemed to be the head of their group, was likeable too. I decided then to take them out to play.
It was a mistake.
As we were playing on the cliffside, Caris wandered off to get my treasured tennis ball when it fell near the cliff's edge. Forgetting the dangers of the cliff, I let her do so, but that was utter stupidity on my part.
As she reached the edge, the cliff began to crumble. Hearing the sound, I realised too late and ran to fetch her. I didn't want her to die the same way my father did, so I ran as fast as possible. I should've realised then that I was abnormal for running so fast, but only in retrospect do I realise that I used magic for the first time.
When I reached the edge, the part Caris was on had already crumbled down, and so I dived in to catch her without thinking. Subconsciously using what I now know to be strengthening magic, and kinetic magic, I reached her as she was in mid-air, caught on to her and flew back. If anyone had seen me then, I'm sure they would've been stupefied, but no matter. I'll show everyone kinetic magic soon enough.
After getting her back, I fainted immediately, although it was just a shift of my soul to another location. In this world, they said I slept for a week like a corpse.
Excerpt from 'The Journal of a Failure'
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"Alex," a voice said curtly, causing the middle-aged man to start. He turned to the woman who called him, and his eyes widened.
"Minerva? You... here... how?" he asked as he pulled a chair out for the lady before sitting down himself.
"Hey, I only told you that you couldn't come over there again, never the other way around. Also, I have work to do, so I can't stay long."
The man straightened in response. He might have passed his prime a few years ago, but he still had a dignified presence when he wanted one. Minerva merely chuckled.
"Stop acting, I've seen you before all of this came about, and I know that isn't you. Knowing you, you probably want to get out of here and spend the rest of your life looking for clues about Caris. Ah, I'm going off on a tangent here. I came to warn you."
"Warn me? Of what?"
"Not you, your planet as a whole. I'm not allowed to divulge specifics, but you're in danger. I'd advise you to accelerate the mage training processes and build up an army."
"An Army? But the planet's as peaceful as... invaders?"
"Yes, of sorts. You have a little more than five to six years. Now, I have work to do. Goodbye!"
Leaving with those words, Minerva vanished, leaving the man slumped into a chair. He waved his hand, and the air around him restructured into an image, filling with colour from specific manipulations of individual particles.
"Caris, I know you're still alive, so where are you?" he mumbled softly to himself before dispersing the image and calling an attendant.
The Emperor had a planet to protect.
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In a forest near the town of Eternia, a young boy woke up refreshed from what he estimated to be a four hour nap. That left him with about seven hours of hunting before everyone would freak out and come after him. He planned to enjoy those seven hours of freedom to the fullest.
Hopping off the tree, he landed gracefully and began to stretch out his cramped muscles. Suppressing a yawn, he then began to sprint through the forest towards its central area while looking for good sharp branches to use as arrows. The December chill permeated through the woods. Although there was no snow, there were quite a few trees whose leaves hadn't begun to grow back from which he broke off the branches until he had about twenty of them.
Once the branches were collected, he fell silent and started to stalk through the forest. On tiptoes, he lightly danced around until he found a rabbit, the city's main food source, foraging through a berry bush. Deciding on his target, the young hunter slowed his breathing until it had a smooth rhythm, and held one of the branches in his hand like he would a javelin.
Focusing on the branch, he slowly let go of his hand and, although it was jerking a little, the branch began to float silently in the air, turning to point towards the rabbit.
It was now that things got tricky. He couldn't just push the branch forward with his magic, there were so many ways to mess that up that it would be a miracle if he hit. Concentrating on the branch's outline, he experimented with adding and removing velocity until it was slowly oscillating around a point while still aimed at the rabbit. Then, he imagined an outline around the branch that included the air immediately surrounding it. If he launched just the branch, it would most probably break from the air resistance. Exerting his mind, he immediately added a huge forward velocity to the branch and it shot towards the rabbit.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The unsuspecting creature could only groan as it was hit, first by an air bullet and then by the branch it encased. The boy's shot was accurate, puncturing right through its left lung and emerging on the other side. As he went up to the animal, its ears were still twitching in a surreal manner.
Picking the corpse up, the boy took out a small, sharp stone from his pocket and rather amateurishly skinned the thing, blood still dripping from the meat. Having the meat float in the air, the boy suddenly increased the torque on it quickly, leading to the blood spraying out and the meat drying. Returning from the tree he hid behind while he did this, the boy put the meat and skin into small sacks that he took out of his pockets before going over to retrieve the branch.
As he'd expected, the tip of the branch had broken, making it mostly useless for his purposes. Discarding it, he went on his way to another part of the forest to look for another unsuspecting rabbit or, if he were lucky, one of the very rare wolves that Vincent had told him about.
Wandering through the forest, it wasn't long before his time was up and the light from Eternia's light tower extinguished to indicate midnight. He would have to be back in bed by the next morning, and everyone would treat the event like it never happened. His caretakers would frown at him a little when they saw him, but would do nothing more.
After all, why would they associate with the best friend of a murderer?
Deciding that being thrown out wasn't really something he wanted yet, the boy swiftly ran in the direction of the valley, from where he could climb a tree and vault back over the walls. His feet were now mechanical, lacking all the grace they had before as he hunted. His mind was no longer focused on controlling his actions, instead allowing his body to run on autopilot while it could think of other things.
He was thirteen today. Just two years below Vincent's age when they first met. The last year wasn't so bad, considering that he had broken a few bones trying to escape which distracted him, but loneliness was a predominant emotion now. He'd snuck out on his birthday just as they used to, but his hunting partner wasn't here anymore. This time, he not only had to aim, but also shoot the arrows himself, but he did it. He had succeeded in his first try. Vincent would be proud.
Yes, he would be very proud indeed. Proud that he hadn't bent his knees when they came to him a week ago and tried to beat him up. Proud that he'd straightened his back and pointed them to the door. Proud that when one of them tried to take him by surprise, a fist had rammed into his body and thrown him out.
Thinking of such things, the boy did not notice that he descended into the valley instead of climbing a tree at the side. That realisation only came when he tripped over a rock and rolled down the last few metres and into a river that was ice cold.
Suddenly feeling cold, the boy snapped out of his reverie. Realising that he was drowning, the boy got up and swam to the top of the slightly deep river. Taking a moment to orient himself, he swam in the direction of the closest shore before throwing himself out.
"*Brrr* T-That w-was close!" he exclaimed to himself as he huddled to retain even the smallest amount of warmth that he could. Suddenly woken up like this, he felt cold and there were multiple small bruises on his exposed arms and legs. His skin had paled even more than normal, and he could swear that he was going to have a cold and a headache after this ordeal.
A few minutes passed as the boy warmed himself before looking around at where he was. The river valley near Eternia was barren and lifeless save for the abundant rocks from a cliff collapse decades ago. Nobody had paid attention to the area during the rebuilding, and it had been ignored ever since. There were even some rumours that the Emperor did not want this place restored for some reason, and the children were told stories of how monsters emerged there at night, looking for unsuspecting victims to gobble up.
This, of course, had greatly interested Vincent, who explored the area thoroughly one night before concluding that there was absolutely nothing there. Being told this, the boy lost all interest in the place as well and had never gone there in spite of passing close to it numerous times.
Suddenly, he heard a few rocks tumbling nearby and went still as stone. His face turned pure white with terror and he had no way to turn around and look at the new actor in the scene. Instead, his mind was thinking up all ways of escaping from the situation and not dying. He began to curse Vincent in his mind. Who told him that there were no monsters here? Evidently, there was one slowly walking towards him.
The footsteps were heard closer and closer, and his pulse continued to quicken until his heart was about to burst. He lost all ability to think straight, and was about to collapse until the idea of using magic popped into his mind.
Slowly opening his closed eyes, he took a look at the sky and the top of the valley. Locking on to a random position, he suddenly uncurled his body and stood up before beginning a run. Exerting his thought once again, he imagined a block that encompassed all of him at once and,
Accelerate!
He rammed, hard, into the cliff before blacking out.
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In another part of the Universe, a young girl was talking to a middle-aged man when suddenly a notification popped into view.
Proximity Alert!A subject, DNA ID EQAPAG2IL1 has wandered into the valley and been heavily injured. Treat the subject and transfer to Training Server?YesNo
The young girl smiled, thought a Yes, and bid goodbye to the man before vanishing into thin air.