Following the beach towards the mouth of the river, I put the setting sun in front of me and a bit to my left. This would mean that following the coast to the mouth of the river would be heading in a north-westerly direction. The Map that I’ve opened while walking shows my position and rotates itself depending on the direction my body is facing. Additionally, I can scroll the map independently of my movement but after playing with this feature for a few minutes I return it to it’s normal tracking mode. Goo⃝le Maps FTW!
As I walk I also keep an eye on my surroundings. The area is pristine and beautiful. The ocean on my left is a calming grey-blue and the forest on my right; a vibrant green. The sand is slowly becoming coarser and after some time becomes more of a gravel beach than a golden sandy one. The air smells refreshingly of the sea mixed with the heady aromas of humus and pine from the forest. Occasionally I hear the howl of wolves or some similar beast from the forest and stop walking to listen, while I hear nothing nearby just the knowledge that there are wild animals around reminds me emphatically that this is another world and raises my caution as I walk. Glancing at my map after near an hour of walking I am surprised to find that I’m almost at my destination. I seriously thought it would take longer to get here and yet, surprisingly, I feel fine.
Before, I was never that athletic and while almost an hour of walking wouldn’t have killed me or anything, I would certainly have felt some tiredness after walking along a beach for an extended period. Now though: I feel great. Better than great even. Is this the effect of status? Eventually I reach the mouth of the river. Even though I’ve seen it represented in the map, I’m surprised by its size.
A wide river deeply cuts through the gravel and sand and flows into the ocean. In turn; gravel filled sand bars cut through the river, creating debris filled islands within the river’s mouth. Two of the larger sand bars look to have been reinforced with a foundation of mortared stone. On this foundation, large walls of wood and brick give rise to an interconnected series of piers and storehouses. On one of the reinforced islands, the shell of a squat square shaped tower leans over the other forlorn buildings as a silent guardian of the river. For a moment I simply stand in wonder at the abrupt evidence of human activity. Eventually though I am reminded by another howl from the forest that this is not a place to be distracted. I had planned to spend the night near the mouth of the river, but the ruined pier is tempting to explore, unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any method to reach the islands on which the pier is built without swimming in the river. Caution out ways my curiosity and I turn away from the islands and look for a place to make camp along the bank.
I decide to camp at an overturned barge on the shore.
Half buried on its side, the barge creates an excellent windbreak and shelter from the night. I spend some time collecting driftwood until I have a sizable pile which I hope will last the night.
It’s only after digging out a fire-pit any stacking a suitable amount of tinder and small twigs that I realize I don’t have any method of lighting a fire on hand…
“I… can’t do this.” I breath these words to myself.
I have no idea what I’m doing. My simple inability to light a fire is a stark reminder that I have no idea what to do. Just after my death, while I was quick to throw comebacks to that idiot goddess, I was also quick to calm down. Almost all of my thought processes were based on rationality. Likely a result of the separation of mind and body. Without hormones or neurotransmitters, emotions where easily kept under control. Yet, soon after being incarnated into this world, I noticed. A constant feeling of unease and anxiety was painfully stirring in my gut. I… didn’t want to die. I don’t want to die. It’s only been a few hours and yet I miss my home. I miss my parents, I miss my apartment, I miss civilization! Who would be ok reincarnating in a strange and dangerous new world without any prior preparation? WHO?
Time stretches as I stare at the unlit pile of kindling. The sun sets and I have not moved nor done anything productive. A constant whirl of ugly and painful thoughts churn within me. In some ways this is only natural. The human mind and body is weak. It can push on if given a goal and this is what I was doing at first. Checking my status and setting a destination. But the moment an instant of difficulty appeared it forced me to confront the reality of my own death and my current situation.
The human body and mind is weak. And still, it is strangely resilient at times.
*grrrwoallwn*
This was not the growl of a mythical beast from the forrest, but the embarrassing gurgle of my own stomach.
Sometimes, I think I may be an idiot.
I can sit here in the dark until I starve to death and what good would that do?
My own hunger pulls me out of my depression. I take deep breaths and calm myself.
If I don’t want to die, then I must survive.
If I miss my family, then I must find a new one.
If I miss my home, then I must create one.
If I miss civilization, then I must strive to better my environment.
With new goals set, I once again, set my eyes on the pile of kindling before me.
I know there is a method to start a fire using friction, but I’ve never done it before and only seen it from movies such as that one with the volleyball named Will-or-something.
Ok, lets give up on fire for now.
What? I can’t do what I can’t do.
Words of inspiration and a will to improve my surroundings? No idea what you’re on about.
I make myself comfortable and open the inventory to take out the bread, dried meat and magic water bottle that was stored in there. I could take them out just by wishing for them to appear but I’m actually enjoying manipulating the inventory window; it has the comfortable familiarity of a PC. The bread is something like a round rye loaf and the meat is simply salted but the flavor of both are incredibly deep. The bread is soft on the inside yet has a satisfying crunch to the crust while the meat oozes a savory flavor the more I chew. I wash both down with swigs of sweet water from the rapidly emptying water bottle.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
The sun has already completely set. The darkness mixes eerily with the hush of the ocean waves. The night is not completely dark though, a multitude of stars blanket the sky and cast a gentle silvery glow on the sands and water. Only the deeps of the forest is truly dark.
Even though it’s dark, I can still see my menu perfectly. Likely, it doesn’t act on principles of light. I select various items within the inventory while playing with the menu. When I select “Manipulating Mana: A guide to magic that even an idiot could understand,” I notice a new option: “View.”
This wasn’t listed as an option for either the food or water bottle. Selecting it causes the book tile in the inventory to enlarge until it takes up the majority of the menu. Within the tile the contents of the book are displayed in an easy to read e-publication like manner, complete with image converted diagrams. It’s here that I encounter another proof of my new reality. The writing if the menu is in English and thus for some reason I assumed that writing in this world would be the same or at least converted to English within my head. The writing from the book an unknown language composed of characters I’ve never seen before. If I had to describe them then I would say they looked a lot like a font called “pig-pen cipher” where most of the characters are composed of squares and right angles as well as dots or small strokes. Additional to those there are more complex characters, some that looked like a monogram of four common characters and others that created a complex square pattern. Despite never seeing these characters before, I could read them. I understood that the simple characters were phonic characters similar to the English alphabet, the composite characters were syllabic blocks composed of four characters from the phonic system and used for either common words or repetitively used words in a given written piece. Lastly, the complex pattern characters are logographic characters which represented an entire word, phrase or idea.
Along with the understanding of the meaning of the words it seemed I also understood the structure of the writing. Even though my personal thoughts were in English my comprehension of the language was not hindered. That is to say, my understanding was innate and instantaneous and not delayed through an act of translation. This is likely due to the possession of Other-World Language that was mentioned by the Goddess, but I wonder why it wasn’t listed in the status? Thinking too heavily on it caused a shift within my thinking process and resulted in thinking in two different languages at the same time which, to be honest, was a disturbing experience. When I stopped focusing on the process of language my mind settled back down into English with the instantaneous conversion to the intended language when speaking, reading or writing.
As an experiment I also take the book out of the inventory and compare the writing using the starlight. The physical book is was written using a beautiful stylized font with multiple flourishes while the menu-generated font is written in an easy to understand standardized font like that of a printing press or computer. With the understanding of the language confirmed I return the book to the inventory and read it through the menu. Don’t judge me. I like the tactile feel of books too, but the light is unreliable and the damn thing is hand written! It’s easier to read in the menu and I don’t need a light source to read it either. In fact I can even see the menu with my eyes closed, so there!
Anyway; I’ll read this book until I get tired. The night is quiet while I read, other than the ghostly sound of the ocean and the occasional animal call from the forest. After an hour of so, I’ve already read the first three chapter of “Manipulating Mana: A guide to magic that even an idiot could understand.” It explained Magic, Aura and the use of these for invoking spells. I’ll summaries it now.
To perform magic, one needs the ability to think, the ability to manipulate one’s Aura and the Mana capacity to power the intended magic phenomena. The most important factor of these is the use of one’s Aura. Aura is the natural protective layer that is formed around a soul or conceptual nucleus (further information in chapter 5) and is heavily influenced by cognition. Aura is able to contain thought and ideas from its wielder as well as access a source of collective thought, common to all cognizant beings, called the wellspring of conception, or from earths philosophy: something like Jung’s collective unconscious.
To utilize magic a person with ability loads their aura with an idea of the magics effect then manipulates the aura into an appropriate shape or form while invoking the aura to convert the saturated mana within into the intended result.
How is this easy to understand? How?
Magic phenomena is separated into two main categories: conceptual magic and procedural magic. Conceptual magic relies on the concept behind the ideal of the magic as existent within the sea of conception. Conceptual magic is not reliant on natural laws in that through conceptual magic fire that burns underwater or maintains a purifying effect against undead, as well as water that heals or wind that cuts can be created. As compensation for these effects, conceptual magic is inflexible outside of preestablished forms. Conceptual magic additionally has an ease of use factor, where by aura manipulation can be performed at a minimum with the use of set chants which have been tied to set phenomena as defined within the sea of conception. This means that most people are able to utilize basic conceptual magics with the assistance of chants and skills.
Procedural magic is different in that it receives little correction from idea forms within the sea of conception and relies heavily on the users understanding of the phenomena as well as precise manipulation of the aura form. Procedural magic is much more cost efficient than conceptual magic yet requires both a level of scientific understanding as well personal talent to quickly construct the aura form.
Additionally skills play an crucial part in the utilization of both conceptual and procedural magics. Excluding a unique type of conceptual magic called Lifestyle Magic, a caster must have an elemental magic skill of the appropriate level to successfully access the ideal forms within the sea of conception. Relevant magic skill will also affect what substances one can accurately manipulate or what forces one can affect with procedural magic. To put it simply: if one wanted to boil a tub of water with conceptual magic then one would need to possess a Fire Magic skill and consume x amount of mana while performing a five second chant to produce a fireball which is then directed at the tub of water y amount of times until the tub boils. To boil the tub of water with procedural magic the caster would still need a Fire magic skill and would spent x/2 mana, while constructing the aura form in a time between one and ten seconds (depending on talent) to utilize their understanding of thermal energy, which is the basis of fire magic, to cause an acceleration of the water molecules in order to bring the tub of water to a boil in one go.
Additionally Force Magic has very few conceptual magic application yet us able to influence all elements through the use of procedural magic.
With a headache developing, I close the view of the book within the menu. The book was wordy and full of contradictions but I think I’ve got an idea of the base concepts of magic… I still don’t know how to use it, but that can wait till tomorrow. With that thought I wrap myself tighter in my coat and lie down within my shelter of the overturned barge. Goodnight.