Claire Wright rose to the sound of birds and the smell of flowers. The westbound sun shone bright over the land, and the green leaves were tinted with a shade of orange.
“Didn’t want to wake you up,” said Lindy, noticing her rising. “You looked liked you needed that.”
“Thanks.” Claire rubbed her eyes. “You have the time?”
“Trying to check on that quest?” Lindy smiled. “Just after eight—Rich and I got ours right after we woke up— whatever you get, if its as good as ours, you’ll be happy.”
She walked away from the younger woman then, telling her that breakfast would be on them this morning. After which Lindy would go out to level with Claire while Rich worked on strengthening the building with James. Hopefully the poison in Lindy could be cured with a few more levels worth of body statistics like it had with Rich, and even if it didn’t, Lindy’s long-range capabilities with her bow would round off the team. Rich in front to block attacks and to keep the monsters engaged, while Lindy and her could pick them off one by one.
A pouch dropped into her lap, a reward promised by the screens that she had looked forward to. Her spellbook lay untouched to the side of where she slept. The jars of medicine lay there also, which Claire tossed into the spatial pouch.
She stood, emptying the valuables from her backpack and tossing them into the magic pouch, then changed into a fresh set of clothes. She fastened the bag to a loop on her jeans, hanging down so that it was within arms reach.
Spell components could go in there, she thought. Items inside seemed to be summoned to the top with a tiny spurt of energy and a mental command. The pouch, even though it was crammed with what surely amounted to pounds of items, wasn’t bursting, nor did it seem to weigh any more than it did.
Spell components could be stored there, she thought. Some sharp rocks, water, or anything, really, for energy infusion. She could cast the spell faster that way, not needing to waste time on finding materials off the ground or getting them from her backpack. Talismans also— some spiritual shields or energy blasts for emergencies—
Claire shivered. She hated this part of her that let itself spiral into realms of logical and efficient death, only wanting to go back into the peace and calm that she had known and took for granted just two mornings prior.
Holed up in a convenience store with a strange family she had never known, nor would have wanted to know, had this… event never struck.
She ate their food and conversed with them with gentle words and a pleasant expression— trying to hide the apathy and disgust that built up behind.
Why do I let them do this to me, they screamed at her. When I could do all of this without them?
Freeloaders? Using her self-earned power as something to pull themselves up by, and by extention pulling her down?
They eat the animals that you hunted, they continued. They sleep calmly under a roof and walls that you shed blood to defend.
They used her talismans, slips of power that cost Claire both time and energy to make. Without so much as a word of thanks?
Or were their pleasantries devoured and concealed by their desire to take what is mine? I have to stop them, and—
Claire stood up abruptly, apologizing for startling them— yes, I’m okay— no, I’m all set on food— yes, I’m sure— and rushed outside of the little store into the woods.
She obliterated the first monster she saw with an energy bolt, then she spun in a circle and shot off a dozen more motes of blue energy from her fingertips.
Why am I this?
Trees cracked where the bolts hit, some of the flimsier ones crashing down into the ground all around her. Claire let out a maniacal laugh.
Do I want this?
The torrent of energy rushing and building up inside of her happily replied with a strong, overwhelming yes.
She stood after a while, feeling more concrete than ever the pool of energy that she used magic from. Like a well of pure power, fields that flowed with lush energy, a power core for all things magical.
Energy was breathed in from her lungs, directly settling in the core. Then, it was drawn out through some kind of energy pathway though her body, and into the hands to be formed into spells.
I don’t hate Lindy, or Rich, or James.
Was this energy getting into my head? Putting thoughts in my brain?
What does it want?
Claire was feeling a lot better after… sitting in a forest clearing surrounded by the corpses of magical beasts.
Was that a bad sign? She didn’t take it to be one; it’s all about the circumstances, and no one was around to see.
She thought this a good opportunity to open the system’s notifications and rewards from the last day.
Claire Wright: Wizard Level 4. You currently are ranked #928 in the Sub-Sector (North America) for progression, #5 for combat ability, and #1 for future growth potential. Your current rankings qualify you for a reward and a title at the end of the day. Claim?
She gave the claim signal a mental nudge, and it responded by dropping some tokens onto her lap. Gear Upgrade tokens, just like the ones she had received from the monster quests.
Paths to Power (III)
- Level up cantrips. (12/30)
- Level up First Circle spells. (18/20)
- Level up Second Circle spells. (0/5)
- Absorb energy. (✔)
Rewards: Spirit Seeding Pill x2 OR Spirit Hardening Pill x2 depending on Path, Variable
Monster Slayer (IV)
- Slay 100 monsters. (12/250)
Rewards: Gear Upgrade Token
* Do this immediately!!
- Learn how to meditate and level the skill to 11.
Rewards: Basic competence, 1 level up
* Prove yourself (I)
- Kill monsters higher than your level. (5/25)
3x Spell Upgrade Token (1st Circle)
Items:
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Spatial Pouch (Uncommon)
Necklace of Flowing Wind (Uncommon)
Clear Star Brush (Common)
Gear Upgrade Token x6 (Common)
Her quests had not been updated much, besides having absorbed energy for Paths to Power. Spells had not leveled, likely because she had been manually casting.
Another notification sat at the edge of her consciousness, which Claire summoned into view.
Chi insufficient to grant earned combat title: “Mortal Contender” to user: Claire Wright. Allow reallocation and redistribution of chi immediately in order to display and gain the benefits of the combat title: “Mortal Contender.”
Just then, a woman blinked into view in front of Claire before she could digest the message.
“Hello, Claire. Congratulations on your breakthrough.” she said.
Claire recoiled where she sat, already beginning to move her energy towards her hands to form an empowered energy blast.
She was battered by a pressure so great that she lost control of the energy. Fruitlessly, she called for the energy again, but it refused to even budge from her core.
“Are you done…” said the woman wearing strange robes. “…child?”
The smile on her face did nothing to alleviate the great pressure radiating from the woman. Claire began to see black on the edges of her vision, her physical self crumpling as if under thousands of pounds of pressure, while her mind suffered an ever-growing pain as the force pressed down her spirit.
It stopped suddenly. Claire, finally allowed to breathe, took in a great deep breath of air as she looked at the hovering woman with fear.
She had an expression of interest on her face.
“That was a fair bit longer than the other one,” she said. “I’m proud, Claire.”
“Do I know you?”
“Of course you do!”
Seeing Claire’s blank expression, she paused.
“Or maybe you don’t. But that’s okay, just think of me as an, uh, system administrator.”
Claire supposed that made sense. Administrators being powerful enough to do… whatever had just happened, though, was extremely scary.
“You just received a notification to allocate more power, right?”
“Yeah, should I let—”
“No.”
“What?!”
“No, I said. Let me make some manual adjustments.”
A tendril of blue light emerged from the administrator’s hands as she exhaled. It went right through Claire’s skin and flesh a little bit under her navel. She felt the energy— soothing blue— enter her core.
The notification requesting more chi disappeared. Shortly, another screen appeared.
Status:
Name: Claire Wright
Title: Mortal Contender (#5 combat)
Tier: 1-0-3
Rank: Adept (Wizard 5)
Path: Mind
Quests (3)
Path of Mind (I)
- Completely fill your expanded core
- Fill your mortal shell with chi
Rewards: Tier upgrade: 1-1-0
Monster Slayer (IV)
- Slay 100 monsters. (12/250)
Rewards: Gear Upgrade Token
Prove yourself (I)
- Kill monsters of your tier. (5/20)
- Kill monsters above your tier. (0/1)
Rewards: Expanded core
Items:
Spatial Pouch (Uncommon)
Necklace of Flowing Wind (Uncommon)
Clear Star Brush (Common)
Gear Upgrade Token x6 (Common)
“There you go,” Said the administrator. “I’ve made changes to your status that should help your understanding of what you need to do to progress.” She took out and offered a stack of paper to Claire. “Here’s a manual that will help you through the next few, uh, levels.”
Claire accepted the sheaf of paper, tossing it into her spatial pouch.
“Why?”
The administrator ignored her question.
“You’ll need to figure that out by yourself. Each Path one walks on must be a personal journey.”
Claire nodded. “I can’t say I understand, but…”
“You’re not meant to, at least not now,” interrupted the administrator. “I’ll call for you in the future, sometime. Remember, Claire—”
The administrator’s eyes flashed with color, a pair of angelic wings sprouting from her back.
“You are currently ranked fifth in the Sector for ability.” She gestured to the spatial bag containing the guide manual. “I expect better.”
The administrator disappeared then, leaving Claire with just her words and the manual. Her quests stayed at the corner of her vision, but vaguities like “completely fill your expanded core” and “fill your mortal shell with chi” had far less order and structure than the previous instructions had had.
Her only lead now was to complete Prove Yourself (I), which would apparantly reward an expanded core. After that, she would have to find out how to fill that core, and then how to presumably use chi to saturate her body.
Claire stood and began to walk back to their makeshift base. Feeling better now that her breakthrough was complete— and with a direction to go, a purpose to live beyond living and killing— she began to walk.
Lindy and her roamed the forest around the store for a few hours. She mainly let Lindy practice getting shots in on the small game that made home in the undergrowth, only stepping in when neccessary to stop injuries, or to handle larger animals attracted by the noise.
The spatial bag, unfortunately, couldn’t store much of the spoils, so they were forced to carry it on their bags. By that, Claire was forced to carry all of the monster materials, because Lindy “can’t shoot with a backpack on!”
She supposed it was fair. The changes the administrator made to her spells felt very drastic: instead of thinking of a spell and letting the system cast it automatically, she had to manually form the patterns. There weren’t that many big ones, for now, but Claire was worried that in the future, she would start forgetting spells.
It was helpful that the spellbook still contained all of the spells. The manual that she had received also had a few diagrams, but the hundreds of snaking lines and dots and circles in seemingly random order had Claire steering away from the manual spells, at least for now.
Tweaking the spells she had on hand felt easier now, too. As if the bump in the Mind stat… had made her smarter? I guess that is its only purpose. To, well, enhance and strengthen the mind.
Claire had experimented with the forming of actual structures to pass the time. Moving the energy… chi? with her mind alone still felt impossible. She could do it inside her body, and she could coat her skin with it, but she lost control of the energy after it went just a few tenths of an inch away.
She could draw with her fingers coated in the energy to form really dense lines, which formed powerful spells.
But forming thinner lines just on her skin should work in theory. The energy would be in the same shape, but it would be faster to make and easier to hide. Claire just lacked the fine control to do that, at the moment.
The morning passed quickly. Lindy took care of herself for the most part, leveling once. They were right in thinking that the level-up would remove the poison from her system, so they decided to head deeper into the forest in search of stronger monsters.
Claire had less time to experiment here, unfortunately, but some of the monsters were strong enough for her to finish the first part of Prove Yourself (I). Nothing above her tier had appeared yet, so she was stuck on this point.
And it wasn’t like the beasts here weren’t challenging. Lindy, obviously, took a few shots to bring down the unnatural deer and wolves, and Claire, surprisingly, couldn’t one-shot them with her energy bolt anymore. Energy blast still took care of them handily, but having to spend resources on a spell to kill a little wolf felt beneath her.
Claire took Rich’s role, here. The monsters had trouble getting through Claire’s wards, so she would stand still and continuously pour energy into her wards while Lindy shot arrow after arrow from the top of a tree.
Lindy leveled again, and seeing the sun in the sky, they decided to head back just after noontime. The energy that Claire could gather from the surroundings wasn’t enough to sustain a fully powered shield against groups of same-leveled enemies indefinitely— Claire was the fifth-coolest person in the whole wide world, but she wasn’t that strong.
She thought she had a grasp on how leveling worked, too.
The energy in the world was far less dense than the energy inside of a person’s body. Or, mind. They were all probably linked to the spirit, but whatever. When something dies, their spirits are burst, somehow, and all of the accumulated energy is released into the air. It stays there for a short period of time, and people absorb it into themselves. And when they absorb enough energy, they level up.
Do ranged people level up slower than melee fighters, then?
Rich certainly leveled up faster than Lindy. And Claire had felt energy enter her from when she was warded, attracting the attention of the beasts for Lindy to shoot.
The system marked her level as an “Adept,” now, only showing Wizard as a side note.
And, the administrator had mentioned that the changes she made were to “aid in understanding” how to progress.
The power in Claire felt no different than it had before the change. Leveling, then, wasn’t measured and dictated by the system.
The system was just interpreting and… helping the person understand the power that they held.
The question Claire had asked the administrator came back to her, all of a sudden.
Why?