Chapter 3: The Song of God
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Name: Vocal
Level: 37
Class: None
Race: Dry Grass
Gender: Neutral
Health: 37000
Health Regen: 371 / Min
Titles:
[Game Master] [Kira's Pet]
STR: 10
BLADES: 371
DEX: 10
INT: 1
LUC: 1
Defense: 1
Elemental Resistance:
Fire: -100%
Water: 1%
Earth: 1%
Wind: 1%
Light: 1%
Dark: 0%
Stat Points Available: 0
Skill Points Available: 0
EXP: 93%
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Currently, I'm being consumed by a variety of bugs and herbivores. Luckily I have a lot of health, so I can take it for a few minutes, but it's still uncomfortable being eaten by bugs against your will.
Oh look, another Water Deer came by. It seems that Water Deers also stay up at night. Wait a moment... OH MY GOD, IT JUST SHAT ON ME!
Well, this just became unpleasant.
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Congratulations!
You leveled up!
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Oh wow, the dung started to quickly dissolve. So plants can level up this way. To think that plants had it easy, but then again it may be good only in the short term.
Maybe I can see the info of other plants. If I can see a monster's health, why not plant's?
Trying to focus my sight to above several patches of grass, a window seemed to materialize like a haze.
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Dry Grass Lv: 24
5868/24000
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Wow, so clumps of grass like this won't survive so easily. I guess rapid growth makes up for that.
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Congratulations
You have gained the skill [Identify]
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Identify: Lv: 1 (0%) [Active]
You can identify certain things, such as items or monsters.
Higher levels give better chance of identifying.
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Well that was easy. Now what should I do? If I stay as a clump of grass, I won't be able to train. Maybe I can attack with my grass form.
Willing my blades to move, I was able to move them very easily. Seeing a small rabbit around level 1 nearby, I used my blades to extend and wrap around the rabbit.
Activating [All Out Attack] I stab all of my blades of grass into the poor bunny quickly killing it. I didn't forget to activate [Devil's Luck] though.
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Rabbit Foot Trinket [Rare]
a memento of a newborn bunny.
Restrictions:
Lv: 1
Equipped:
+ 5 AGI
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AW YEAH!!! Trinkets are one of the top best items ever. Most species can't use equipment like four legged animals, but trinkets are one of the few items that can be used by almost any race.
Although my grass form can't equip it, my slime form might be able to. Oh, it seems that [Eidetic Mind] finished its cooldown. Turning into a human, I just realized that I could've use [Cell Structure Change] to put all of my points into INT.
...oh well.
Equipping all of my items, I checked my status.
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Name: Vocal
Level: 37
Class: None
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Health: 3700 (4250)
Health Regen: 70 / Min
Mana: 3700
Mana Regen: 70 / Min
Titles:
[Game Master] [Kira's Pet]
STR: 70
AGI: 70 (132)
VIT: 70
DEX: 70
INT: 70
LUC: 70
Attack: 1-70
Spell Damage: 70
Defense: 70
Elemental Resistance:
Fire: 1%
Water: 1% (10%)
Earth: 1%
Wind: 1%
Light: 1%
Dark: 1%
Stat Points Available: 0
Skill Points Available: 0
EXP: 93%
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Wow, compared to the other testers, I probably have the highest level. However if I consider the fact that I have no equipment or class, I’m probably around the same level as everyone else.
With those guys gone, might as well grind.
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Exiting the pod, I felt quite content. Finding several new equipment and leveling up was quite easy now.
Going to the kitchen, I heard the phone ring nearby. No one calls me unless it's the orphanage. The only exceptions are...
Picking up the phone, I answered, "I'm retired why would you call me."
Hearing a slight chuckle on the other end, a masculine voice replied, "There's an important job that I need you to do."
"Why can't the others do it?"
"We needed a magician. It's related to New World."
Surprised, I wondered how the VRMMORPG is related to the underworld.
"What's the case?"
"Well you probably know that some beta testers were picked out right?"
"Of course, matter of fact I'm one of them."
"Oh! So this makes it easier. Some of our members also became testers. In the game one of our men became a mage, but he realized that the training was exactly like the real deal. Another member also reported the same for Qi cultivation."
Well that's quite worrisome, but the good news is I now know I can use my techniques in the game.
"So someone is using real world techniques."
"I want you to investigate the game on who did this. If this game goes public, mages and warriors will start popping up all over Earth."
"So why do you need me? There are plenty of mages in the organization."
"I'm pretty sure my exact words were “ we need a magician” get my drift?"
Oh, so they need me after all.
"Got it. What's the commission?"
"Huh? What are you talking about? Did you forget about all the favors you owe me."
"I'm putting down the phone..."
"W-w-wait, how about $10,000?"
"$20,000 and you got yourself a deal."
“Fine.”
Hearing the hang up, I thought, “I wonder what kind of effect this game will have on the world,” and, “Cheap bastard, I should’ve asked for $30,000.”
Now to the readers who may be confused, I’m a mage. Technically I’m a magician, but at this point there’s no difference.
When I first met the organization, they introduced to me the concept of the natural energies that most people have forgotten. Learning the organization's techniques, I became a magician.
Right now, Earth’s energy is running out due to pollution, so people who can use energies as powerful as me are rare now.
If more people like me entered the world, I wonder how long the world will last.
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Entering the game again, the first thing I did was look for a safe spot to hide at. It seems that morning is coming, so during the transaction of night and day, most monsters would disappear.
Searching around, I found a small cave where I can hide myself. It had a small bush covering the entrance which was already quite small.
Inside, I set myself into the meditation position I used in real life. Calling all of the elemental mana nearby, I received several notifications.
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Congratulations
You have gained the following skills:
[Mana Manipulation]
[Fire Magic]
[Water Magic]
[Earth Magic]
[Wind Magic]
[Light Magic]
[Dark Magic]
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You have gathered the complete set of elemental magic.
All elemental magic skills have combined into [Elemental Magic].
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Mana Manipulation: Lv: 1 (0%) [Passive]
You can identify Mana with your senses and somewhat control it.
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Elemental Magic: Lv: 1 (0%) [Passive]
As the skill level up, so does access to higher ranked magic.
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Well that was easy. Quickly, I recall all of the low level magic I remembered. Practicing a few spells, I noticed how they weren’t registered as skills and that some spells were not available.
Looking at the system help feature, spells are ranked as the following:
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Mortal Rank Magic - 1~999 mana
Core Rank Magic - 1000~9999 mana
World Rank Magic - 10000~99,999 mana
God Rank Magic - 100,000~500,000 mana
Divine Rank Magic - 500,000~1,000,000 mana
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(Note: Mage related classes multiply mana by ten. Warrior related classes multiply attack and defense by ten)
Right now with my mana it’s possible for me to use core rank magic, but my magic mastery isn’t high enough to use them.
Practicing a few more spells, I go outside to train against monsters. As a magician, my obvious preferences for a class are mage related. So I know how to efficiently hunt monsters with magic.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Using a low level spell [Mana Point] I gather most of the mana near me. With this, most monsters will be attracted to the mass amount of mana.
As they come, I just realized that most monsters were higher leveled than me before they came all at once.
Seeing a range of monsters between 40-70 almost made me have to change pants, but I have magic on my side.
All right, let’s get this going!
1 minute later…
HELP!!! SOMEONE SAVE ME FROM THE MOB!
Chasing me were a large amount of monsters that were in hot pursuit. Even with [Eidetic Mind], I didn’t have enough mana to fight against a whole crowd of monsters.
Turning around, I fire another [Fireball] spell at the closest monsters, which were unfortunately Water Deers.
Continuing to run, I fired off as many spells as I could while moving around the same area. Picking up all of the loot was quite hard with monsters nearby.
“All right, it seems that my magic mastery has leveled up enough for this spell. [Field of Fire].”
All around me, the surrounding grass catches on fire. All monsters without high enough fire resistance easily die. This was the power of my core rank magic.
Seeing all the monsters gone, I quickly pick up all of the japtem and run away. Using the same tactic, I continued to grind like this for the next two days.
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Name: Vocal
Level: 49
Class: None
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Health: 4900 (5450)
Health Regen: 81 / Min
Mana: 4900
Mana Regen: 91 / Min
Titles:
[Game Master] [Kira's Pet]
STR: 81 (91)
AGI: 81 (188)
VIT: 81
DEX: 81
INT: 81 (91)
LUC: 81
Attack: 1-81 (26-107)
Spell Damage: 81 (101)
Defense: 81 (181)
Elemental Resistance:
Fire: 1% (2%)
Water: 1% (10%)
Earth: 1%
Wind: 1%
Light: 1%
Dark: 1%
Stat Points Available: 4
Skill Points Available: 0
EXP: 93%
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Skill List:
Change Form (Lv: 4)
Cell Structure Change
Metamorphosis
Eternal Stomach
Identify (Lv: 4)
Mana Manipulation (Lv: 8)
Elemental Magic (Lv: 6)
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New Equipment:
Spoiler :
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Leather Wolf Armour [Common]
Made from the furs of slain wolves.
Durability: 39/40
Restrictions:
Lv: 40
Equipped:
+ 100 Defense
+ 30 AGI
—————
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Horn Dagger of Bull [Common]
A natural horn shaped like a dagger.
Durability: 29/30
Restrictions:
Lv: 42
Equipped:
+ 25 Attack
+ 10 STR
+ 10 AGI
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Grimoire of Fire [Rare]
A book explaining more about the laws of fire.
Durability: 29/30
Restrictions:
Lv: 35
Equipped:
+ 20 Spell Damage
+ 10 INT
+ 5% Damage With Fire Magic
+ 1% Fire Resistance
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Well with the training I did, I started to reach a bottleneck. Monsters in the area are no longer a match for me, and I’m too weak to explore in other areas yet.
Now I’m just spending time practicing my skills on monsters with no real goal until the end of the quest.
...or I was planning to until I heard the song. The song that made me play this game in the first place. I sometimes wondered why Daimon Chase chose me to play this game. With his power, he would’ve definitely investigated my background.
With no prior plan, I started to move into the direction of where the song was coming from. Honestly, this song captivated me even though I made the song.
Time passed, the surroundings blurred as I followed the song. When I came to my senses, I noticed that I was before an altar of sorts.
The altar was a simple wooden shrine like building, but for some reason it was bathed in a divine aura. Seeing no one, I wondered where the song came from.
On the floor in front of the altar was a complicated magic circle with many runes that I recognized enough to translate into something along the lines of a teleportation circle.
Stepping on top, the song gradually started to get louder as the circle started to shine brighter. In sync, the circle and the song grew and grew until nothing else could be seen or heard.
Then, I blanked out.
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Barely a minute passed as I woke up.
I was in some sort of white space that stretched for miles without end. A place void of anything but me, or so I thought before I noticed the woman in front of me.
The woman herself wasn't remarkable, rather she had a bland appearance. But power radiated from her very being, an aura that's like a deity's.
Speaking, the woman I ridicule herself. "I am Nephestine, the goddess of [New World]. Tell me mortal, how are you able to enter my realm?"
Confused, I wondered what she meant. If she didn't bring me here, then what did?
"My name is Vocal. I am an otherworlder who came to explore the world.”
Well might as well play along.
“I came here because I heard a song that captivated me. Going to the source, the song led me here.”
“Hmm, that’s strange. No one except Gods can hear the [Song of God]. Tell me, are you an Admin?”
Shocked that she knew about the admins, I answered, “Not really, I’m actually a higher rank. I’m a GM, a Game Master.”
An expression of shock appeared on the goddess’ face. “That would explain how you heard the song, but I do not sense the aura of authority your kind has.”
I guess she means that I’m not really a GM without the title. Manipulating my character’s window, I equip the title allowing me to use GM settings. Suddenly, a similar divine aura to Nephestine started emitting from me.
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You have equipped the title [Game Master]
You have temporarily unlocked [GM Settings] Lv: 1
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Seeing the control panel appear in front of me, I saw many options that would’ve made me practically a god to [New World].
“I-Incredible, you have such a large amount of Divine Power emitting from you.”
“Forget about that, can you tell me why I’m here?”
“Ah, I apologize. Well, I don’t really know why you’re here, but I guess it’s because of the title you just equipped.”
“What’s that have to do with me being here?”
“The title grants you power equal to a Level 1 God, and I guess that it can still give you more power. Because you have powers of a god, Divine Power (DP), you were probably attracted to a holy object or alter. With a divine object or building, gods can enter the divine plane."
"So that's how I got here. But technically I didn't have DP so how did I get here."
"Hmm, well the only explanation I have is that you have affinity with the Song of God."
Understanding dawned on me. No wonder then, cause I'm the one who created the song.
"Anyways, I can't have a mortal here in the divine plane, even if you have a sufficient amount of DP."
"Then I'll be leaving. Mind helping me out please?"
"With your powers, you can leave on your own," and with those last words, she disappeared.
Toggling with the system, I saw many options. Most of them were really useful, but all of them costed DP to use. It says that I currently have 1,000,000 DP. Seeing several options, I use 100 DP to purchase a Navi Pixie.
A Navi Pixie is a special program where you can implant an A.I. into your system. Basically the notifications will come from a personal fairy only you can sense. In other games, they were given it as rare prizes or came from difficult quests.
It seems that it'll take a while for the pixie to be implanted into my system. Around a few hours.
Looking around, I use another 3 DP to get the skills [Enchant], [Rune Mastery], and [Handicraft]. These were hard skills that I usually had to get later on in the game. When the penalty time starts for me (official release limits beta testers) I'll be crafting to make up for the level imposing.
Finishing up, I used one more DP to buy an information book on Slimen. Thinking to myself to leave, I appear instantly at the waiting spot from five days ago.
De-equipping my title, I thought how convenient it was to take me here. Otherwise I probably would've missed the place as I had no idea how to get here from the alter.
Thinking about the song, I realized that the song probably played a major part in [New World]. Maybe I should try to sing it for a skill or something.
Usually I wouldn't otherwise as most people would find out that the song was by me. If the same tune as the original was noticed, then I would've been famous.
Luckily no one's around. I wonder if I still sound good?