Ander did not realize how lucky he was that the chasm had monsters as tasty as the giant boars. When he had decided to eat the spiders, he had not really thought about what that meant for him. Though the look on Karsish’s face when he dropped a bunch of dead spiders on the floor was absolutely fantastic. Karsish quickly retreated to his brand new book castle looking green, and leaving Ander to do the cooking. Which was likely for the best. Since Karsish was still only level 2, he wouldn’t be able to crack the spider's exoskeleton.

Ander quickly got to work, setting out an impromptu kitchen in the training area. Of course, it was a well stocked kitchen, as he had gone as far as to tear cabinets off the walls to take them along. He immediately got to work. First he tried some of the various kinds, butchering them and cooking them up, but as he thought, there was little meat on those. The greatest meat came from the ones that most resembled tarantulas or jumping spiders, and they gave a nice surprise. Ander was not much of a cook, but he had eaten enough crab to identify the flavor. Of course, the spider meat really wasn’t anywhere near as good, but it was close enough that Ander didn’t have to experiment a lot in order to season it properly. When he finally served a giant platter of the stuff for him and Karsish to eat, they actually enjoyed themselves.

Of course, Ander ate the lion's share. Apparently he was the only one amongst the clutch that had the quickened growth buff, and Karsish informed him he already looked a few months older than he was. But their meal soon concluded, and Ander left Karsish to his reading. Ander had monster hunting to do, but first, he had to test a few things out.

When in the void before he reincarnated the second time, Ander had snagged three spells. Wind Blade, Fireball, and Prestidigitation. He needed to see how these were going to work if he was going to work them into his fighting. Ander put away the stuff he used to make dinner and prepared the training area. He started by pulling out his sword. He figured Wind Blade would be his bread and butter. It was one spell he could use just about any time, and it represented an increase to the effectiveness of his current fighting style. Ander concentrated for a moment before activating the spell. Without fanfare, a distortion formed around his blade, and when Ander listened close, he could hear the soft sound of static coming from the edge. Ander threw some large pieces of spider exoskeleton into the air. The stuff had been tough, requiring quite a bit of effort from him to cut through. Now however when he sliced through it, it glided through, tearing the pieces of exoskeleton apart.

The cut was not a particularly clean one. More like what you might expect from a chainsaw than a master swordsman. But it was incredibly quick and violent, and that is exactly what Ander needed. The only downside was the casting time which took a couple of seconds. That was a bit too long if he were ambushed or something, but he figured practice could speed up the cast time. He then held it for a while, and found that he could likely hold the spell for days with his mana pool, though the cost of the spell did spike any time he tried to cut something. He would have to test out fighting with the spell of course, but he thought it should be a fairly cheap skill to use.

Next up he decided to use prestidigitation. Karsish had been watching his last performance, but there was nothing about that that really screamed ‘spell.’ From Karsish’s perspective he might have just been using Way of the Wind, if he had realized there was an odd effect at all. Way of the Wind might also be able to explain prestidigitation. But Karsish would know for sure something was up when he pulled out Fireball. Sure he could leave to test fireball, but Karsish would find out eventually anyway, and Ander really didn’t mind that. He was sure Karsish would be a great help in understanding how magic worked.

Prestidigitation was a form of minor telekinesis. telekinesis was a hard spell, as Ander had gleamed, requiring high mental stats to use properly. Moreover, it had a tendency to strain the mind that used it if they tried to concentrate on too many things. Prestidigitation on the other hand put restrictions on the skill in the form of automated tasks the spell could perform, greatly reducing the strain on the mind using it. As much as Ander wanted to learn telekinesis, and there was a good chance he could with Minds of the Void, it would be foolish to try without a few more levels under his belt. Ander focused on the broom he had leaned in the corner of the room, and cast prestidigitation. The broom immediately sprung up from its resting position, and started to sweep the room. That was one of the automated tasks it could do. Left on it’s own it would repeatedly sweep the entire room until it was completely worn away. But he could exert his influence to tell it where and what to sweep at any given time. The only downside was that it went back to it’s original programming afterwards.

Ander could get a broom to sweep the floor, a rag to scrub some dishes, and several other homemaking skills. Nothing he could use in combat, though he hoped to change that when he upgraded to telekinesis. Finally, Ander gestured toward an unoccupied wall in the room and cast a fireball. A small bead of flame shot out from between his fingers and impacted the corner of the room. It then proceeded to explode violently, shaking the entire room and throwing both Ander and Karsish to the floor. When Ander got up, he saw a soot stain where the spell had exploded in a 20 foot radius sphere from where the fireball had hit. He still had no idea what the actual combat potential of the spell was, but since his ears were ringing he figured he should test it in a larger space.

Moreover, being thrown to the ground was apparently enough to get Karsish’s attention once and for all. Karsish was on his feet, pointing and stammering at the wall where the fireball had exploded.

“That was a spell, I know it was!” Karsish eventually said, and Ander simply nodded. There was no use in denying it even if he was inclined to. That had been significantly more violent than he had been expecting. “How are you able to use spells with the decree?”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“That is a bit of a long story, but the short version is that I have been allowed to despite the decree.” Ander watched Karsish’s face go from stunned to stern.

“You don’t expect me to accept that as your only answer, right?” Karsish stared Ander down, who finally relented.

“Fine. Fine. Go to the magic tab in your status sheet.”

“What magic tab?” Ander froze at the question.

“You don’t have a magic tab?”

“No. I have one for my status and one for my skills, but not one for magic.” Karsish held Ander’s gaze, who finally relented.

“Well, I have a magic tab. I always have. In the magic tab the entire thing was greyed out and there was a notification box that said that the use of magic had been denied by the Creator. But then below, there was an error code saying that there was something wrong with a recent patch and that I should contact an administrator.” Ander watched as Karsish had a harder and harder time following what he was saying. By the time he had finished talking, Ander realized that without the background of computer knowledge from earth, all this stuff about error codes was likely incomprehensible to Karsish. “Here, let me see if I can show you.”

Ander started by first identifying Karsish.

Karsish

Exodar Commoner - Oritol Lineage

Level 2

There are 8 outstanding errors regarding this individual. Would you like to address those errors?

Yes / No

Ander chose no for the moment. The next part was what he wanted.

Karsish

Administrator Options

1. Edit UI

2. Manage Skills

3. Manage Stats

4. Examine Errors

5. Enable / Restrict Features

Ander chose the Edit UI function, and Karsish jumped for some reason.

“I just got a notification requesting permission for you to edit my UI.” Karsish exclaimed. “What are you trying to do?

“I am trying to enable your magic tab so you can see what I am talking about.” Ander said. “Give me access, I won’t change anything drastic without your permission.” Karsish hesitated for several seconds before selecting yes to his prompt. Suddenly, a UI popped up in front of Ander in his real vision, not the odd second vision his UI always stayed in. That was, in part, due to the fact that it was Karsish’s UI. Ander marveled at the simplicity of the layout and the sleekness of the design. It was way nicer looking, and far easier to understand than Ander’s UI. Which made Ander wonder why his UI was so different. He would have to access more UIs somehow to see if this was an isolated thing. Still, he did as he said and didn’t touch most of the UI, only going to the tab options at the top, and enabling the magic tab. He had to choose a layout, as the ‘theme’ of Karsish’s UI didn’t include a layout for a magic tab, but he was quickly done.

He also noted two things before he closed Karsish’s UI. One was that when he looked at Karsish’s magic tab, the same warning was there as was originally on his magic tab. The second was Karsish’s stats. They weren’t impressive, as you might expect from a level 2. The real interesting thing was the fact that he had 6 stats: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Not the huge mess of stats Ander had been subjected to.

“There you go, you should be able to see it now.” Ander said, but he could tell that Karsish was already looking over his new magic tab.

“ERR 36214, huh.” Karsish muttered. “It is said that the Creator had to subdue the unruly system to make it serve the Exodar, so maybe this is it trying to fight back?”

“I am not going to tell you you're wrong. I really don’t know. But after a while I managed to trigger an administrator search.” Ander waited until Karsish nodded that he had been listening. “It didn’t find anyone, and so It decided to create some new administrators. It offered me that position.” Karsish stared at Ander with shocked interest.

“I don’t know whether to call you a heretic, or praise you for the discovery. People have been trying to find ways to manipulate the system forever, and here you come and do it with ease.” Karsish sat back on the couch. “I would love to talk more about this, but would you remove the magic tab from my UI? I don’t want to be staring at it every time I use my UI.”

“Why?” Ander asked, baffled. Karsish just stared at him.

“Well, it has been a dream of the Oritol to be able to use magic ever since the creator denied it to us. While you have been blessed with the privilege, I don’t want to be staring at my inability for years to come.” Karsish smiled sadly. “So please remove it.”

Ander squirmed slightly in his seat. This had gone the complete opposite of what he had intended. He was at least happy that Karsish didn’t seem to hate him though. Seems like that would have been an easy step to take.

“Can I just remove the restriction instead?”

The silence was deafening.

“You can revoke the Creator’s decree?” Karsish asked, suddenly intense in a way Ander hadn’t seen from him before.

“Um, yes? But only for a few months at a time. You would have to stay relatively close so I can continue to use the override every so often.” Ander watched Karsish apprehensively as the other man processed his words.

“Well, I…” Karsish took a deep breath. “I don’t know if this is heresy or not, but I can’t just leave an opportunity like this. I would love for you to override the restriction. Let me use magic as well!” Ander grinned at his only friend.

“You have made the right choice, I guarantee it.”