The new world unfolded before Laurence. There were calm rivers flowing along the plains, no other people or animals to be found. Beautiful rock formations lay atop hills, with many of the stones having characters the Laurence could not comprehend on them. He assumed these were not to be meddled with, so he left them alone.
On his journey to the nearby village, which was only a few miles away at this point, Laurence saw a cave, with brightly shining torches lighting the way in. The entrance was fairly large, and took up a large amount of a hill’s peak, and had detailed inscriptions along the sides of the walls. He decided to enter the cave, as he needed a short rest due to the 4 hour trek on his way to the settlement. Once Laurence entered the cave, there was already a camping site set up, with small but sturdy beds set up against the walls. The was also a warm fire, it’s flame dancing as if enjoying every moment of its life, lightning the cave in a very beautiful way, with shadows occasionally filling the spots where the flames radiance once danced.
After he had a 15 minute rest, he decided to explore the rest of the caves inside. After around 30 seconds of walking deeper into the cave, Laurence found a door with purple torches on the sides of it. Various details were inscribed onto the door, with maze like carvings flowing through the stone. An ominous aura could be detected from the door, however Laurence did not know what an aura was yet, and he hadn’t unlocked the aura stat yet either. A decrepit chest was found by the side of the door, it’s contents not yet known. He decided to open the chest, releasing a mass of dust and cobwebs from the inside. Among all of the useless items that gathered over time, there was a book with the title of “The Art of Magic and it’s many forms”. Laurence couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculous title, as he knew well that magic did not exist. Clearly, he still thought of this as a dream.
Despite the books ridiculous title, he still decided to open it. There were countless words among the pages, however all Laurence could see was a box full of text, that said “You have found out about magic! The affinities, magic attacks, magic defenses menus have been unlocked. Additionally, you have unlocked the Mana bar, which is located directly below your Life bar.” After reading the words Life bar, yet another info box appeared in his vision, which this time said “Congratulations, you have found out about the Life bar! This is located directly below your level and above your Mana bar” After reading level, yet another info box appeared in his vision “Congratulations, you have found out about Level! This is located next to your Mini-map”.
Laurence was dumbfounded. There were six new things for him to investigate in his view, however, he first opened the Affinities menu.
”Welcome to the affinities menu! This is where you can find out your magical affinity.
Your magical affinity: Time (Master 0, Development: 0.000000%) (Affinity Rarity: Unique [Only one person can have this affinity])
According to your affinity, the Magic Attacks and Magic Defenses categories will show your current abilities with your magic. Time affinity is a special case, as with every 1% development point you acquire, you receive a new spell and previous spells will be heavily buffed. At 100% Development, you can evolve your Affinity to Time (Master I). This will increase development requirements, however the spells of a Mastered Affinity are far far stronger than the previous Mastery.”
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Laurence could not even begin to imagine the amount of time it would take to evolve this Affinity to Master I, since he thought casting one spell would raise the Development by 0.000001% (Note: You would have to cast 1 million spells to raise the Development by 1% if this was the case. Thankfully, this is not the case, as this is only Laurence’s thinking). He proceeded to scream out it a extremely excited manner “UNIQUE TO ONLY ONE PERSON!!! HOLY SH*T, I CAN FREEZE TIME NOW”. Laurence hurriedly went to the Magic Attacks menu, and opened it post-haste.
Welcome to the Magic Attacks menu. Underneath this text are your current magical attacks.
Time Freeze 1 (Time frozen for 0.5 secs through your perspective. Devlopment: 0.000%. With each 0.1% development time frozen increases by .1 seconds. You are not restricted by anything within frozen time. Every time you use this spell, development increases by 0.025%)
Laurence tried this immediately. “TIME FREEZE!” He cried out, and as he finished saying freeze, a distorted noise was heard across the entire universe, signifying the frozen time. The flames dance rehearsal had ceased, the flame locked into place through Laurence’s power. Clouds no longer moved outside. Trillions of living beings across the universe were instantly frozen in place, without even having a chance to think about it. Colour drained from the landscape, creating a land of pure grey. Laurence took a step forwards. Still nothing moved across the entirety of space. Then the frozen time ended, and another distorted sound was heard. Flames began their rehearsal once again, clouds moved as if nothing happened. All life began to return to their normal functions, and colour returned to the landscape.
Laurnce was shell-shocked. He had just seen everything in perfect stillness. He now knew this wasn’t a dream, such a thing couldn’t happen in a dream. Laurence finally understood. This was not a dream, this is his new reality.
After around an hour of coming to acceptance that this was his reality, Laurence checked his affinities development rate. He opened the menu and what was shown on screen was “Time (Master 0, Development 0.010000%)”. He now knew that every time he used Time Freeze, his development would go up 0.01%. This meant he only has to cast time freeze a hundred times to get to his next spells in both attack and defence category. A pop-up appeared in his vision that said he could view the remaining time that was frozen in the top middle of his vision. He checked, and sure enough there was a green counter showing 00:00:00.00 (Note: Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Milliseconds. Each has 2 zeros respectively). Laurence thought of how cool it would be if he could have an aura that surrounded him showing his power over time. Finally, this unlocked the Aura Visuals Selection Screen (Note: I’ll refer to this as AVSS in the future), Aura Power, Aura Emanation, Aura Visibilty and the Aura stat. However, before investigating the AVSS, he checked the Magic Defenses screen.
Welcome to the Magic Defenses menu. Underneath this text are your current magical defences.
Barrier of Time 1 (Time will reverse to before based on the Development of the Barrier. If the attack has a Development of higher than the barriers, no defence will be applied. Development: 0.000% Currently your defence will reverse time by 1 second. Every time you get 0.001% to your Development, your barrier will reverse time by 1 extra second. You can choose the amount of time reversed. You are not affected by this reversal. Development increases by 0.001% every time the barrier successfully reversed time)
This seemed like an extraordinary defence to Laurence. He would be able to reverse time to before an attack even occured! He casted Time Freeze again to raise Development, and the Development rose to 0.05% for Time Freeze itself, and 0.02 for the actual Time affinity.
Suddenly, at the entrance of the cave he heard a deafening growl, capable of making cracks in the cave by itself. Laurence moved to the campsite to investigate, and he saw a ebony beast waiting at the entrance of the cave. He hid beneath a bed, and waited for the beast to finally notice his presence.