It took Michael some time to discover the rules of this strange world.
First of all, it was strangely.. granular? Segmented? Modular? Things had a certain quality to them when looked closely, as compared when looked from afar.
Every piece of stone, every tree, every branch, every leaf, even the water itself. Objects were clearly distinct when looked at a certain distance, but when examining them in detail they switched from a big object into several smaller ones.
Michael stood a certain distance from a boulder and approached it, then stepped back, then upfront again, he played with this strange characteristic, finding the distance at which the boulder displayed smaller stones at the base. Then he got even closer, and the smaller stones increased in number.
Michael tried an experiment and picked up the stones he could carry. His hand could not dig into the ground and some stones could not be moved at all, but he retreated to his initial distance and dropped the stones on the ground, then approached the boulder again and from there looked back at the stones he had dropped. They were all lumped together into some boulder-looking mass.
Michael then tried to break a branch from a tree, and found that not all branches could be moved. After checking tens of trees he found that most of them had five basic shapes, and extra branches would grow over those basic forms. This branches were the only ones he could break
“Its as if this world is not completely formed” Michael mused to himself “Or too formed? Is this why the earthlings are exploring it? To uncover its secrets?”
This took him back to his philosophy classes, there was a hypothesis about the world being a pale reflection of the World Of Ideals. According to this, in a superior level of existence there were abstract concepts as the basis of reality, and matter was merely trying to reach and express the perfection of such archetypes.
Take gravity for example, gravity molded everything into a spherical shape. Gravity was the archetype of “sphericalness” made force, and the world tried to follow that mold, but the imperfections of the matter prevented this ideal sphere from forming.
It was not a bad thing, as the hypothesis claimed the imperfections as the basis of subjective reality. In a perfect world only the archetypes themselves would exist, but that would prevent the existence of imperfect things such as living beings.
Of course, most derivations of this hypothesis went on about how that actually meant their branch of magic was the one closer to perfection, but there was also a postulation that there may be other levels of reality, on which different closeness to the arechetypes could be experimented.
That was actually one of the basis of astral magic, as many claimed an understanding of perfection and imperfection would allow for a more stable astral form. That’s why initially Michael made his astral shape based on his body, to avoid all those metaphysical shenanigans. The fact that it allowed for more stable astral travelling was a very welcome coincidence.. but other people had no need to know that.
Michael knelt next to a water stream and grabbed a handful of water.
It fascinated him how an isolated amount of water would take the form of a blob and stay on his hand even when he opened his fingers. The water was beautiful.
Michael made more tests with the branch and stones, an found them hard to break once they reached a minimum lower size.
Things were more solid individually, but they changed their nature when lumped into a bigger structure. It was as if the world operated in layers of existence. Like a fractal.
The concept was nothing new, as magic structures operated in a very simmilar way. But this only applied to energy constructs, and never to matter itself.
The most strange part was how it felt.
When touching something his body would feel the texture with much more detail than what his eyes perceived. This was the main reason why it felt natural, because he could not be examining every detail with his eyes all the time, but his body certainly felt everything at any given moment.
The difference made him postulate a hypothesis. Maybe this was made on purpose, maybe this was a function of his new body and not of this world, a way for the earthlings to interact comfortably with this layered world.
Whatever the reason Michael still had to complete the tutorial, and find the next step of this exploration body.
Inventory – 5/5
-Sturdy branch - 25
-Small rock – 86
-Common berry- 12
-Apple- 1
-Rasgord Grass- 8-
Five hours later Michael got a hang on how to forage, as it seemed that stuff was spread on a regular basis and advancing on growing circles was a good way to comb the forest. He had a branch on his arm, as the tutorial said he had to kill enemies and he could not access any of his magic.
When he reached a clearing a wolf jumped in front of him. His spirit assistant showing him the foe’s name.
Dire wolf- Level 18
The wolf’s fur was much more complex than anything else he has seen so far. Michael could see the fur moving as it breathed, and some individual hairs separating and joining. He tried to hide behind a tree, but the wolf lunged in a flash.
Michael used his branch to block the strike, and then let it go. He took out another branch from his inventory and hit the wolf’s head with all his strength.
A ghostly number “3” floated around the wolf, the beast opened its jaws and bit him.
You have taken 20 damage
You have died
Everything went dark.
Michael opened his eyes, not knowing what to expect. He was inside a cave, and looking around he suspected it was the same cave he arrived on previously. He tried to move his body and he was actually capable of rising to his feet on a single leap, but his head hurt and he could not move properly.
He felt everything spinning around, but his body stood still without falling or tripping.
Michael realized he was not going to fall on his own and made a conscious effort to lie down.
It took him an undetermined amount of time, but his mind stopped spinning and he could focus again.
He recognized the symptoms, he had overdrawn from his astral force.
It made sense, his new body was made from that earthling capsule, but his astral form was devoid of a body where to rest on. With his astral power depleted his mind became hazy and he had to gather more energy by concentrating, and actively trying to reform his astral body.
It was then he realized, that he still had access to his astral magic in an active way, but at the moment he had no other applications for it, besides keeping his mind stable.
It was weird, he had a physical body to interact with this world, but he lacked an astral body to fill it with.
“Maybe i have been not exploring this body properly” Michael said to himself.
He had jumped on a single, clean motion, and then his body stood still while his mind wandered off. If the earthlings were exploring this world... this realms, it made sense if their constructed bodies had special functions adapted to this place.
The environment was made of fragmented entities, maybe his body had fragmented functions too?
He felt as if he wanted to puke, but he had nothing on his stomach... did he even had a stomach?
Instead of walking outside Michael meditated until his mind felt solid enough, and experimented with his body.
He could “eat” the fruits he foraged previously, but he was not actually chewing anything. The fruits just dissolved on his mouth and a stream of flavor flowed down his throat.
“The fruits became liquid as i eat them? Or did i somehow absorbed its essence?”
Michael took out another branch and practiced swinging it.
He discovered there were specific areas on which his arms would move by default: front, sides, diagonals. Every swing on those directions would be almost automatic and he just had to think of doing it.
In a sense, it felt like unleashing a spell he had completely memorized.
Michael tried more movements and found that he could also leap in three distances: small step, full step and lunge.
His strikes also came in threes: soft, medium, strong.
It was not hard to deduct why it was made this way, with a little practice Michael could move and hit with a minimum amount of concentration, while keeping his awareness to see his surroundings and made decisions.
This was a body made for exploration.
And he could still use movements outside those defaults, but he had to invest more concentration on his body, which would leave him open to an attack.
Next it came his status.
Michael Thundercock
Level 1
Class---
HP-10
MP-0
Equipment
-Sturdy branch
The message said he took 20 damage and then died, since his only numerical values were “Level 1” and “HP-10” one of them had to be the amount of damage his new body could endure. Since the wolf was “Level 18,” it would be weird if it could cause more damage that its own vitality with a single frontal bite, therefore “HP-10” was his measure of endurance.
Besides, the tutorial told him to reach level five to access a class, so it made sense if levels were not related to survival, but to growth.
Thinking of it, the wolf didn’t actually bite him, it was more as if it opened its jaws and rammed into him with the open maw. It made sense, if this world was closer to the abstract world of ideas, then the idea of a bite was as good as a bite.
But death, somehow the earthlings devised a methods to cheat death.
Again, it made sense, if this body was not truly alive, then it could not truly die.
It was terrifying, the idea that out there was a whole world capable of invading other worlds with immortal soldiers. Maybe he was too rash when he assumed they were explorers looking for greatness. He would do well to keep his distance before interacting with them.
Then again, his real body was back home and not on earth, if the earthlings depleted their astral power they would simply rest until recovering, but he was at real risk of dissipating if he died too many times. He had to be cautious
But nothing ventured, nothing gained, Michael went out of the tunnels while practicing his moveset.
Half a day later Michael realized this body felt no real hunger, but his HP depleted a little after a while. But the berries he had on him worked enough to recover him, and this is how he assumed those berries could actually heal him if he took damage from battle.
Not that he actually engaged in battle, as most enemies around here were on the 15-20 level bracket, and he felt zero confidence on taking them on frontally.
*****
Michael ran away from a three-horned rabbit, one horn long like a unicorn and the other two merely stumps to the sides, and Michael ran into the water of a small pond fed by a stream. The area had lots of streams and ponds, weirdly enough. Fortunately they reached up to his waist and he could maneuver inside, albeit with a lot of restriction.
It took him three hours to discover enemies which he could actually hurt, this horned rabbit being one of them.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The other was some kind of carnivorous plant, but it was too big and it merely smacked him with a vine after a while. Michael was sure it had received no real damage.
The rabbit jumped while its horns glowed, but lost its footing on water and immediately tried to swim back to the shore. Monsters here were weird, they had mostly very clear territories and habits that only changed when under attack. On this few hours Michael had discovered how to exploit them, by finding a monster’s territory and hiding on the perimeter of it, where they were the less alert.
To be less wary on the corner of your turf rather than in the middle?
Whatever, it worked.
Monsters were knowledgeable of the environment on their area, but once lured outside they were easy to surprise. While the rabbit tried to swim out of the water Michael hit it with his branch. The rabbit tried to attack him, but with no footing it could not ram into him. Whenever Michael hit it the rabbit bounced back into the water, and tried to swim to the nearest shore, Michael was cautious of not hitting it too much that it became closer to the other side of the pond or it will swim there like the previous one. Then he kept hitting it until it died.
It took him an hour, damn sturdy rabbits
You have slain Three-horned rabbit- Level 17
You have gained two levels
This confirmed his suspicions, and erased some of his worries.
The monsters had levels, and levels were gained by killing. Savagery was an idea present among the many layers of concepts. It was only natural. How could a world exist without conflict?
Something glittery fell into the pond.
Rabbit boots
Jump +2
Limited equipment
Michael examined the boots with absolute bewilderment, and he stood there for a few minutes, trying to tie this into his hypothesis of the “World Of Ideas,” but he had no clue how it fit.
Getting the hide and meat would be acceptable, maybe he could have spun his logic until he came up with something like “The soul binds the meat and fur into a living being,” but he was at a lost on how exactly a pair of fucking boots fell, already made.
Michael just gave up and accepted that, sometimes, shit happens.
He opened his status again
Michael Thundercock
Level 3
Constitution 1
Strength 1
Channeling 1
2 available points
First things first, he tried to get the boots and they fit immediately, disappearing from his hand into his feet, the +2 had no effect on his status but he tried jumping and his reach increased by a small amount, which he assumed were the two units mentioned. Then wondered how to spend his points, but seeing he had no idea how it worked he simply put them on strength.
After all, the wolf killed him on one hit and other stuff would likely be the same. His best bet was to rely on ambushes and terrain advantages anyway.
Michael tried the whole process again and another rabbit died, but this one only gave him one level and no gear.
He kept going at it for the whole day and slain fifteen rabbits, but his levels only increased up to six. He also got two pieces of rabbit meat, but he was not capable of eating them raw, his body simply refused to absorb them.
*****
Jon Jonson opened the new server to the public, and checked it as rutine commands. The only account active was the dummy one he made to mege the glitch. He should probably check on it, but Jon completely forgot where he left it.
Whatever, if he solved all the problems now, there would be nothing left for the players to complain about. Being too good would make it look as if the system didn’t need him, better be an average programmer that gets repeatedly called to fix stuff, than being an ace that is called once, and then let go because everything runs smoothly.
Also, that gave him a chance to sneak some farming bots, into the areas still unreachable to players.
Jon loaded his little secret program and it produced a thousand bots all over the server. This was by no means an indicator that he was responsible for the glitch that created new accounts. He merely stumbled upon this other backdoor while trying to fix the glitch. Capisce?
The game had the most restrictions on the farming of resources, so the company could make a killing by selling Booster Packages that included special gear and gold. But using this pretty little exploit, Jon was able to have his small army of bots collect enough gold and loot for him to sell on the side.
To be honest, all he did was to program them following the fans’ guides on how to maximize loot. Everybody knew the game penalized the repeated farming of the same mobs, but only the most dedicated fans got to the task of finding how exactly those algorithms worked.
Being a programmer by no means meant he had access to all the secrets. All he knew was that farming protocols were created by some expert in criptocurrency, to ensure repetition of goods as soon as possible, leaving the company always with space to sell special stuff.
But of course, that also meant they were out of budget for the other stuff, and they had space to maneuver. Hence the farming bots.
The higher ups could, of course, use the money earned to fill in the gaps on the game, but that would meant no continuous increase in profits, and no chances to give themselves a well deserved bonus. And we cannot allow that, can we?
Frankly, the game was solid and fun for the casuals, but some gaps in design left enough space for the hardcore fans to exploit, and that was one of the factors that kept the game alive and well.
So, Jon’s farming operation was totally morally in the right, and in no way a violation of trust. That’s how he happily loaded his bots with instructions on how to farm every area, as well as the protocols to follow if they even came in contact with real players.
A server took about three to six months, for the players to reach the higher levels, it was enough time until he volunteered to work on another server.
Now, back to his Space Volume Mining stocks, and to exploring asteroids. He had been tracking a banana-shaped one and he had a hunch it was filled with potassium deposits.
*****
Two weeks went by, and Michael felt no need to sleep, which was concerning.
His mind had gone on like that when he was a student at the magical academy, and everybody agreed it was not healthy. Because his body would react on its own and his mind would wander.
Without a regular body Michael was not worried about the body thing, but his mind did focus on weird stuff at a certain times. This is why he was meditating inside a cave. It was the closer he could get to rest, but he lacked a certain something.
Dreams, weirdness, self alienation. Michael realized that being aware for so long was the main problem, everybody has a need for a period on which to unwind, and he was too aware all the time. He required some way to let himself go.
Maybe when he finally found some people, Michael said to himself, he could unwind by following others, but on this isolation even that was out of his reach.
He instead took another approach, and taunted the rabbits in diverse ways, until he memorized their movement patters.
Like a beast gladiator, Michael took out a rabbit coat and waved them in front of the rabbits to get their attention. Once they were invested on attacking him, he would hit them with his branch while they jumped, and kept using the coat to taunt them.
Back home, some beast gladiators would use sandy or muddy terrain, to deny the beast a proper footing, pierce them with hooks to decrease their muscle reaction, or even surround themselves with bodyguards, to protect them if the beast even got the upper hand. But Michael considered such methods extremely lame.
What’s the point of the man versus the beast if the beast is diminished?
That’s why he bravery faced the... rabbits, alone.
Michael was only level 10, and the rabbits were perfectly capable of killing him with two good strikes. Under normal circumstances a match like this one would be madness, but Michael felt no pain from the attacks, only a shock followed by a numbing sensation. It was troublesome, but not at the level of the crippling injury it should be.
But he had to admit it was kind of fun, the rabbits also had three levels of movement, and would leap left and right to confuse him. They only had two levels of jump, with combined with their attacks, the normal ram and the glowing one, but the glowing attack left them wide open and was actually easier to dodge.
Jumping left and right, countering the rabbits’ jumps with leaps of his own, was like a game of rock-paper-scissors in high speed, and it combined movement in two dimensions.
Wacking them with his branch only added to the challenge, and Michael jumped into the routine of increasing his skill, meditating, and moving east, while avoiding the wolves and other dangers.
Another week went by, and Michael took himself to the challenge of killing one of the carnivorous plants.
The trunk was a thick bulb, big like a small bathroom, and the vines extended upwards and outwards like a canopy, they were actually holding branches to complement their disguise. Although the plant was in the middle of a series of ponds and they were not nearby trees to poach branches from. Weird.
It was actually a plant pretending to be a tree, and the roots extended and flooded into the ponds.
The plant suddenly hit him one day, and Michael could only atribute it to his recently acquired level ten. Whatever, if it wanted a fight so did him.
The plant attacked him with a series of strikes from two of its vines, while the rest kept the disguise on. While braving the rabbits Michael had discovered he could actualy parry enemy strikes, as usual the ability came in groupos of threes, or so he theorized because he was only capable of deflecting attacks by holding his branch close to his chest, and spinning when the rabbit rammed onto him.
Class (Locked)
Skills
-Smash 1
-Parry 1
-Dodge 6
The spirit assistant recognized his prowess and offered him the option to buy the skills at one point each, considering he had ten points available from leveling up it was an easy choice, but that only made him question why he only had tree available.
They were obviously based on his actions, but a series of trials proved him incapable of developing new skills. His only lead was the fact that those skills were related to combat.
He had a suspicion that reaching a town would allow him to obtain extra skills, besides the class he was promised, but he had no idea where to go and he could only keep moving.
The vine strikes were actually easier to parry, and he could make do by swatting them on the air. But the plant slowly increased the pace.
Michael decided to try his luck and rushed towards the bulbous trunk, and hit it. His branch bounced back and a ghastly seven rose from the plant. It wqas something, but he doubted it would be enough.
The plant wipped him good, and it took a good thirty points of his health.
HP - 80/110
“This is not really possible,” Michael said to himself, but luckily he had a resource to rely on.
Common berry – 89
He eat a berry and restored his health by 20 points and went to fight again. Not having to chew it was really a blessing, and Michael had to wonder how many types of food he couls use like that. Would he take out a cheese wheel to heal himself in the middle of a battle?
Whatever, it worked. That was becoming his motto as of late.
The battle continued like this for half an hour, with Michael parrying some strikes, taking the damage on others and healing himself with his pantry. Al of this while advancing to the trunk and hitting it, at that point he was forced to retreat to avoid the onslaught of vines at close range.
The plant had long ago droppes the branches of its diguise and the vines kept flailing around wildly. Only the vines hitting him took a semblance of order, but they became more orderly the closer he got to the trunk, and this is what forced him back
According toi his rough sums he had caused around a hundred damage when the plant droppes the vines to the ground and inclined its trunik in his direction. The top of its trunkl had an opening from which it spat a large amount of green liquid blobs, which impacted on his general direction.
Michael rolle3d around to avoide them, but one of them hit him on the leg and glued him to the ground for a second, on which the vines ganged on him.
HP – 20
Hios health was low, but he was out of the vines’ range and for some reason monsters didnt intrude on the territory of others. Which made him confident on not having unexpected ambushers. Michael took out his berries and gulped them down like a greedy thunderchick.
Unfortunately his body became sluggish and his health dropped constantly, which pretty much made his previous strategy impossible. he kept on the edge f the vines, parrying them to keep the plant engaged and to see if it had more of those attacks.
A couple minutes later the effect faded and he regained his mobility. Michael began the process again and this time he was ready when the plant spat him again. But instead of runing away he ran towards its trunk, and ducked just below its “mouth.”
The attack went over his head and Michael was in position to hit the plant repeatedly, this time the plant had dropped its vines so it had to lift them and flail them around to gain momentum, allowing Michael enough time to connect five strikes.
Michael realized this was the way, and repeated the process seven times more until finally, the plant died.
You have slain Spitting Vine Level 19
You have gained two levels
The plant dissolved into a bunch of lights, and for the second time an object fell from an enemy.
Vine vest
Strength +3
The vest looked like a bunch of vines tangled together into the shape of clothing, and Michael equipped it. Just like the boots, it appeared him his body and fit perfectly
Michael tried swinging his branch, and he could swear it moved a little faster.
With newfound confidence Michaelk took on another two Spitting Vines, and, just like the rabbits he found them to yield diminishing returns for each new one he slain.
“Maybe, with this being a world of ideas, repeating the same idea over and over brings little grown to the mind” Michael reasoned to himself. But at this point he knew he was just winging his explanations as he went, more for the desire to find a meaning to his situation, than to really understand this world.
Two days later Michael was level fifteen, and he felt confident enough to take on a wolf.
Michael Thundercock
Level 15
Strength 11
Constitution 5
Channeling 2
From his experimentations, Strength was just as the name said, and his body became capable of more raw force, constitution made him sturdier and heavier, giving him more leverage to endure blows, and more footing to inflict them, and it also decreased the damage he took.
Channeling was the thing he had no idea how to use, his magician background gave him hope he could cast magic, but he was completely unable to do so. After investing one point on it, Michael explored his astral abilities hoping to see a change, but there was none, so he invested everything on his other stats.
Class (Locked)
Skills
-Smash 1
-Parry 1
-Dodge 6
-Resist 1
Which he assumed was to block or endure sluggishness, not that he expected the wolves to spit poison, but they may have other abilities with the same effects.
Weird, Michael realized he had slowly came to thing of enemies, on terms of the skills he got.
Finding a wolf was not hard, and this time Michael didnt wait for it to lunge, instead he charged forward with his branch. The attack connected, creating a ghastly fifteen of damage.
“That’s much better than last time” Michael said to himself, pleased at his own growth.
The wolf attacked him, and Michael parried with his branch, the maw of the beast closed with an ethereal imagery of even bigger jaws, and the branch broke. At the same time, he took ten points of damage.
“So that was its skill” Michael said calmly while taking another branch, the rabbits had that shining rush, the vines had their poison spit, that made him believe the wolves would have their own trick.
Michael was coming into the suspicion that monsters operated on a different power set than himself, and, as expected, the wolf could do small and long jumps Two levels, while he kept the maneuverability of his three levels of leaps.
His skills were not showy, like the monsters, but combined with his inventory he had pretty good chances against stronger enemies. And they were rather limited, stronger, indeed, but on a single type of attack.
He could do it.
Same as the vines, after attacking, the wolf became slower and Michael could connect two strikes.
The wolf was stronger, but dumber and their speeds were matched, but its limited skillset and recoil time was its undoing. Michael took his time, savoring the feeling of besting a foe that had killed him so easily on the past.
Finally, the wolf fell, disintegrating into a shower of lights, Michael stood there, his arms opened while basking on his victory. His branch on his hand, feeling as if he was holding a powerful magical sword.
Once again, an item fell.
You have killed a Dire wolf Level 20
You have gained a level
Wolf totem
Strength +1
Crafting material
The spoils of victory, it was a collar shaped like a wolf head, it was a glossy white, maybe bone.
Michael equipped it.
Back home, advancing his magical research took him years of study, eternal days and nights of dull practice, tons of resources spent. And he had to sit on dead ends, stumbling into the dark for weeks or months, desperately trying to advance, so he could pave the way for his family.
The results were there, but he was only one among the thousands who chased the same dream, and so many of his peers failed.
But this, this feeling of progression, to have a clear path to become strong, to have his efforts to aways pay up. It felt great.
Even stranded on this strange land, with his body far away, with enemies approaching, this felt kind of great to reach new levels of power so methodically.
On the north of this forest there were the mountains he arriven in, he would come back stronger, climb them, and see the world.