Chapter 13: Like a Witcher
The schedule was such—basic training in the morning, before and after breakfast. Free time after lunch, then aura and mental training in the evening. She didn’t know what aura and mental training entailed but it was no different than any university schedule in many ways. Did she ever truly understand electromagnetism even after taking a class on it? No, that was Earth’s own brand of magic, and she was a muggle.
“Why is there free time in the afternoon?” Nara asked after reading the schedule. “Isn’t it better if I’m training then too?”
“You will be, in the future,” Amara said. “There is a reputable adventurer education institution a distance from here. They have classes you can sign up for and attend. More importantly—those to spar with at your rank and skill level. We can teach you much, but a peer of your rank will help you improve in ways we cannot.”
“You’ll portal me over in the afternoon?” Nara never would have thought she would commute to school with a portal.
“Not exactly,” Amara said. “I’ve been analyzing the capabilities of your racial abilities, and I was curious of whether you can accomplish something. If you can, that will be the schedule we shall adopt.”
Nara scratched her head awkwardly, “I’ve been meaning to ask…but what exactly is it that adventurers do?”
Amara looked taken aback, for just a moment, before she composed herself again, “That completely slipped my mind. Does your world have no adventurers?”
Nara decided not to conflate video game and novel adventurers when she was seeking a clear answer.
“Not in this day and age. Long ago, we had explorers who mapped the world. All of that now, our technology can do but better.”
“Then who slays the monsters in your world?”
“My world doesn’t have monsters. My world doesn’t even have magic.”
“That’s…curious. I hadn’t considered that was possible,” Amara said slowly, processing the implications of such a world, and how that would affect society. “It’s a topic I’d like to hear more about, but I will explain what an adventurer is first. Strictly, adventurers are essence users that pass a certification from the Adventure Society. The Adventure Society issues contracts, and adventurers complete contracts for coin.”
Like a Witcher, Nara thought.
“The renown and duty of an adventurer is beyond that,” Amara said, her voice tempered and serious. “They are the line of defense for the ordinary, those that stand between them and destruction. Of course, not all adventurers feel this strongly, but do their part like anyone else. There is nothing wrong with that approach.”
Amara glanced and Nara, “You may not feel to impassioned to protect this world. To do your part, completing contracts and slaying monsters, that is already enough. For many others, an adventurer is the path of freedom. Complete contracts as you wish, travel the world in search of ruins and mystery,” Amara smiled, perhaps relating more to her next words on a personal level. “Get into trouble and form life bonds. The power to choose your own fate, and bear the consequences of those decisions. I suspect this may be something that resonates with you?”
Nara couldn’t help but feel that Amara’s passion was contagious, yet she was still unsure. She knew almost nothing of this world, except that there was magic. That alone excited her—she wanted to connect with her family once again, but there was no reason she couldn’t enjoy the journey. To see what a world of magic has to offer her, and what she could offer it.
“Sounds like something I’m willing to give a try.”
Amara grinned and handed her four stones that each individually fit neatly into the palm of her hand.
The first one was clear, with the image of a sword floating within. As she turned the transparent stone against the sun, the sword within changed, transitioning from claymore, to broadsword, to rapier, to saber.
She was surprised to be handed such an odd object so suddenly. It was like holding a holographic image that shifted with your point of view, encased in transparent glass, like some sort of cheap novelty paper weight.
The second was an uncanny stone of the iris of an eye. As she stared at it, it stared back. She could have sworn it blinked, nearly causing her to drop the stones she cupped within her hands. The brown iris was uncannily detailed, like a blown up image of an eye. This eye looked human, but she wasn’t quite sure. Amara’s own eyes were inhuman; they glowed bright as if they were duo suns across the chocolatey midnight darkness of her skin.
The third had warped dimensions. Peering within, the saw a vast, tranquil landscape. A wide grasslands, wind blowing over in invisible waves. A sense of freedom and longing welled up within her, and she wanted to reach out her hand to touch the scene. No matter how she gripped it, her hand did not breach the material to touch the imaginary landscape.
The last stone looked and felt rough and jagged. It looked almost like a normal stone—a piece of debris that had tumbled from a decaying ruin. If it were not for her Guide identification, and the faint buzz of magic, more instinctual sensation than physical vibration, she would have thought that Amara was playing a trick on her and handed her a normal stone to see how she’d react.
She inspected the first stone with her Guide.
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Item: [Awakening Stone of the Sword] (unranked, common)
Classification: Awakening Stone, Consumable
An awakening stone that unlocks the power of the sword.
Requirements: unawakened essence ability
Effect: awakens an essence ability
-You have 16 unawakened essence abilities.
-You meet the requirements to use this item.
-[Use? Y/N]
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“This is an awakening stone.” Amara explained. “When you absorb an essence, one ability is awakened at random, for a total of four abilities. The rest of your abilities you must awaken with awakening stones.”
“So, what purpose do each of these stones serve? Why are they all different?”
“Each stone has a vast pool of abilities that you can awakening, determined by the essence it is awakened from. There are theories, but the prevailing one is that awakened abilities are influenced by the essence set and your personality. Subsequent abilities will also tend to fill out deficiencies or synergies with earlier abilities, so the first few stones are important.”
“But it’s mostly random, then?”
“It is random,” Amara said. “Some say the soul chooses. Some say it does not. Either way, you have no control over it other than choice of awakening stone itself.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“I can’t choose what essence it goes into either?”
“As far as this world knows, there is no way to control which essence an awakening stone binds to.”
“Wow,” Nara said. “I can’t believe it’s been RNG this entire time.”
Caught up in the moment, Nara assented, and the sword stone melted into the palm of her hand. The magic subsumed within her body, and she felt the pain of a piercing stab that caused her hand to shudder, as if someone had ruthlessly plunged a blade through the palm of her hand, or she had dumbly missed the space between her fingertips playing the knife game. She would have dropped the stone, if it hadn’t already melted away.
She gasped and blinked back the pain and emerging tears, but the pain had faded as quickly as it appeared. What was left was a new Guide notification awaiting to inform her of the result.
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-You have used [Awakening Stone of The Sword].
-You have awakened Dimension Essence Ability, [Blade of the Boundary]. You have awakened 2 of 5 Dimension Essence Abilities.
Ability: [Blade of the Boundary]
Conjuration (sword)
Cost: Moderate mana
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Conjures [Horizon’s Edge, the [Blade of Infinity]]. Normal and special attacks made with Horizon’s Edge deal physical and rending damage and will inflict an instance of [Dimensional Instability] and inflicts or refreshes [Dimensional Rupture]. Horizon’s Edge can be made incorporeal at will, which can affect incorporeal entities.
* [Dimensional Instability] (affliction, magic, stacking): All rending damage suffered is increased. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.
* [Dimensional Rupture] (affliction, magic): When inflicted or refreshed, suffer additional rending damage proportional to current instances of [Dimensional Instability].
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Amara chuckled at Nara’s wonder. There was no wound on her hand, and the pain itself was gone like a mirage.
“Are you alright?”
“I got a bit caught up in the moment,” she said. “Is there usually a ritual for this as well?”
“We can acquire a skill book on basic ritual magic for you, if you’d like. The ritual to absorb awakening stones is a basic ritual.”
“If you’re offering, I won’t refuse,” Nara said shamelessly. She didn’t like pain. “The more knowledge the better.”
Amara nodded, approving of her attitude, although Nara’s intentions weren’t so grandiose, “Knowledge is power. Especially for you, who knows so little of this world. With more knowledge, you will feel more secure.”
Her insecurities over her new life was seen through, even though she had not voiced them. She was used to it, by now. All four of the members of the compound had this strange perception, as if her thoughts and feelings were written on her forehead with sharpie for all to see. She was just glad they weren’t disappointed with what she was.
An ordinary, twenty-something former office worker.
Amara’s inquisitive eyes twinkled, “Go on and use the rest. The rest shouldn’t hurt.”
“You seem more excited about this than I am.”
“You are the one who isn’t excited enough,” Amara said. “I haven’t seen a single person with the ability to directly absorb essences and awakening stones. It’s uniquely an outworlder trait.”
“It’s common for outworlders?”
“We’ve seen enough outworlders to know that those who do not know ritual magic or do not have essences already awaken an ability to use them. It’s otherwise a wasted ability that you only use 20 times.”
“Ah, yes, how nice that one of my abilities is a waste.”
“If you had been dumped in the wilderness like some outworlders, it would not have been. 20 uses, but it would save your life.”
She looked out to the jungle. She thought she saw something shake those titan trees, but she must have imagined it. Yet in the back of her mind, logic told her a massive jungle must have proportionately massive creatures, like a habitation of Carboniferous giants.
“I am grateful that it is going to waste. “I couldn’t Tarzan a jungle, fancy magic-absorbing ability or not. Like, day 3, I’m dying of thirst.”
Nara picked up the second stone, and used it as well. The strange eye stone melted into her hand. Energy coursed through her body, and for a second, she felt as if she could see something normally imperceivable. She had briefly become an oracle, able to see the patterns of the cosmos, the hands of the powers beyond the veil. Or, she was tripping out of her mind. Same as before, the sensation quickly faded, and she was greeted by a new message.
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-You have used [Awakening Stone of the Eye].
-You have awakened Mystic Essence Ability, [Gaze of the Boundary]. You have awakened 2 of 5 Mystic Essence Abilities.
Ability: [Gaze of the Boundary]
Perception
Cost: None
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Perceive dimensional boundaries and dimension effects.
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“A dimension sight ability?” Nara said. “Shouldn’t that have been in my dimension essence?”
“The Mystic Confluence is known for its utility and support abilities,” Amara said. “The dimension essence, in turn, is known for abilities with greater effects. The reason why the confluence is important is for its ability to synergize with your other three essences. It’s expected that the abilities it awakens will support the abilities of your other essences. If you had refused your confluence, you would have had to take another essence. Your ability set would lose out on synergy, not only in the confluence, but also between the other three.”
“I could have refused it?” Nara asked.
Amara grinned, “It’s best you did not. So we did not mention it.”
The third stone was a curious stone. The first two had been obvious—a sword and an eye. Her ability told her this one was an Awakening Stone of Reach.
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-You have used [Awakening Stone of Reach].
-You have awakened Dimension Essence Ability, [Dimension Node]. You have awakened 3 of 5 Dimension Essence Abilities.
Ability: [Dimension Node]
Special Ability / Conjuration (dimension, teleport)
Cost: Low mana
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Teleport to locus of dimension effects. This effect cost low mana and has no cooldown.
Effect (Iron): Conjure a [Dimension Node], a locus for dimension effects, costing low mana. [Dimension Nodes] are incorporeal. A maximum of 6 [Dimension Nodes] can exist simultaneously. If another [Dimension Node] is conjured while the maximum number of [Dimension Nodes] already exist, the oldest [Dimension Node] will be replaced, unless another is selected.
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“Two effects in one?” Nara said. “That seems powerful.”
“It is just the way your ability displays information. To you, and any other person that awakens the ability, the effect is one and the same—you create dimensional loci that you can teleport to.”
“But it implies I could teleport to any locus of dimension effects, not just the one I create,” she said. She hadn’t actually tried out the ability yet, so she was jumping the gun on her counterarguments. And shouldn’t she be happy if an ability was powerful? She belatedly realized that playing devil’s advocate in this moment was entirely pointless. She should accept what the universe had generously bequeathed onto her with unquestioning open arms.
“Do you think dimensional loci are common?” Amara said. “The ability would be useless without the ability to create a locus yourself.”
“How was I supposed to know if dimensional loci are common or not?” Nara grumbled.
Amara smiled and indicated with her gaze to continue on to the last stone, the one that was like a crumbling rock—an Awakening Stone of Ruin. When she absorbed it, the stone crumbled like ashes and dust, seeping into her skin. Her mouth and eyes felt dry and parched, and her skin felt cold and crackling, as if she had just wandered through Pompeii after its destruction, the ash of the dead caking her skin and the walls of her missing lungs.
“Shouldn’t hurt my ass,” Nara grumbled. “That felt terrible.”
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-You have used [Awakening Stone of Ruin].
-You have awakened Harmonic Essence Ability, [Entropy]. You have awakened 2 of 5 Harmonic Essence Abilities.
Ability: [Entropy]
Spell (curse)
Incantation: “From order to disorder”
Cost: Moderate mana
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Periodically applies an additional instance of each stacking curse, holy, unholy, or magic affliction the target is suffering from. This is a curse effect. This effect cannot be cleansed while any other curse, holy, unholy, or magic affliction is in effect.
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“Entropy?” Amara said, her brow crinkled, “What does that mean?”
“It’s a thermodynamic quantity that represents the amount of disorder in a system.” Nara said. “Something from my world. You know how I said my world doesn’t have magic?”
“Yes. I remember.”
“Just like how you are all studying magic, my world studied everything non-magic.”
Nara stared at the ability description ponderously.
“But who knows if Entropy even applies in a world with magic. Magic is a limitless resource that flows from the astral to reality through the dimensional membrane,” Nara mused. She remember what the astral being Chrome had taught her in the astral. “If my world could harness that, it’d solve at least our energy issues. Geopolitics would change forever.”
“Harnessing ambient magic energy is a common technique for large cities,” Amara said. “We’ll take you to see some.”
“With a portal?” Nara said, her eyes lighting up.
“Just you wait.” Amara said encouragingly, “You’ll see the world yet.”
Nara gazed out at the massive, ancient jungle that surrounded the reclusive compound, wondering what wonder this world held. She had already held magic literally in the palm of her hands. A civilization dictated not by science, but by magic. How did that change the course of development? Did all universes have magic, or just this one? Were the rules in each different?
She held innumerable answers within her mind that even Amara and the others would not be able to answer for her. Just as the rules of science were still being illuminated, the mysteries of magic were not all theirs to wield.