Seeing someone use magic, the first thing he did was to call for the system in several ways. When he murmured 'Character' it went through.
[Name: Aki
Race: Human/carbon based fae (Life level 0)
Level: 1
XP: 0
Main class: Novice mage Lv 1
Sub-class:
Stats:
STR 2
DEX 1
END 1
VIT 2
INT 4
WIS 5
CHA 1
LUCK 1
Free points: 2
Talent points: 1
HP: 4/4
SP: 3/3
EP: 20/20
Traits:
Concentrated fancies: +10% learning and crafting speed to projects which catch your fancy.
Insanity: Grants a varying (between 0.8 to 1.5) modifier to mental resistance depending on the nature of the check.
Fae blood: Slight increase in magical affinity. Slight resistance to non-energy infused weaponry. Increased vulnerability to significance fueled damage. Your potential is naturally unlocked.
Abilities:
Basic arcane affinity Lv 1 (0/1000): Slight increase in magical affinity.
Infuse Lv 1 (0/1000): Infuse your energy into a target.
Detect magic Lv 1 (0/1000): Focus on the energy around you.
Skills:
Talents:
Meta: 0 out of 10 (Basic) Lv 0
Essence: 0 out of 10 (Basic) Lv 0
Connection: 0 out of 10 (Basic) Lv 0
The first thing he noted about it was how it reminded him of the system from a certain mechanic cockroach god's system. The second thing he noted were the most obvious differences, like the fact that there was a counter for total stats and energy was (apparently) just MP or a more neutral equivalent.
Then he had an idea.
'Show logs'
…
…..
Well, it seems like that pain filled impression he'd woken up with was rather a suppressed memory he was eventually going to deal with. More important than that or the implied insinuation that he was just a changeling that'd replaced his mother's actual child, MAGIC! A system! So long as he could endure, he would be able to go back through his own power.
That meant laying low and acting average, which would be a bore and humiliating in new ways, but…
"Oi." Said the knight with healing magic as he finally turned to regard her again, his few minutes of respite interrupted by her grabbing his jaw and giving him a piece of wood.
Fuck.
Opening his jaw, he noted it distended a lot more easily than normal, and that his teeth somewhat pierced the wooden *CRACK* MOTHERFUCKER! His ear was on fire! they were melting his face!
Gritting his teeth through the wood plank aside, he couldn't actually move though, as the knight held his neck and head in place. With one hand. His mind registered that she was likely several dozen levels above him and likely even more combat ready than the base requirements for such, but his consciousness mostly focused on the fact that THE FIRE WAS CRAWLING THROUGH HIS FACE AND EXPANDING INTO HIS BRAIN! That part of his body didn't even have many nerves, how in any hells could this even hurt so much?!?
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Luckily, it took a lot less time to pass out this time.
………
"I will never understand how some people could possibly like to do this." Commented a far too loud voice.
"Some monsters act like people so as to feed. Bureaucracy allows them to be useful to society, but normal people like us still need to follow through with our duty so as to not allow them too much power." Answered a baritone that was fortunately not as loud.
Getting up, he had some mild nausea and almost decided to not actually follow through with the action, but the fact that he remained in his barely illuminated rock cell, surrounded by unknowns, made that choice for him.
"I take it that you can somehow also understand my words now?" He asked upon sitting up. The other person on the room was a man with green skin color wearing some rather well made robes over his clothes, so possibly a wizard.
Instead of answering him in any way however, both of his wardens turned to look at each other, the man eventually shaking his head.
"Seriously?" Questioned the knight.
"It's rare, but it happens that the language structure is simply too different for one or either parts of the enchantment to work. We could attempt another implant." He paused, looking at Aki's paling complexion. "Well, it seems like he can at least understand us. Don't worry, those things are expensive and don't interact well with each other even between different versions, so we wouldn't actually use another without a complete failure of the first one."
That revelation almost made him fall back to the ground from too much relief. They couldn't understand him, but at least he wouldn't have to… don't jinx it.
'Don't fucking tell me I already jinxed it, just kill me now.'
Taking a few deep breaths he turned to look to the people who had not yet talked again. They didn't look like they were doing it to coddle his pain-addled self.
He wanted to scream that he was not doing anything for them. That they could summon the next idiot and try to use him instead. To cry and kill himself in an attack of spite.
Instead he just nodded at them.
"You are holding yourself together rather well, that is good. You're going to need to keep doing that. The empire has plans for you and others like you. You will obey, there is no other option. The only difference your cooperation will offer is how many liberties you will be allowed to keep. If you excel, rewards might even be offered." Explained the maybe magician with several short sentences.
Anxiety and rage grew in the pit of his stomach, but he just nodded again.
"If you try to break people, things or get out of here, you will be punished and then more restraints will be placed on you. If you disobey orders you will be punished and then further restrained. If you withhold vital information from relevant entities then you will be punished and considered for execution." Rattled off the knight. To which he frowned and gestured to his mouth. "You will be taught the fataram language so as to communicate properly, but otherwise you are expected to figure things out with your handler."
Aki groaned and held a hand to his nose's bridge. This was so fucked up.
He just wanted to get to doing magic so he could pretend none of this was of consequence. That his mother wouldn't go into a self destructive spiral looking for his sorry ass because he'd be able to just cross space time and turn any possibility of her suffering due to his disappearance into an impossibility. That he would survive through this whole thing and come out better for it.
…………………..
The process of binding himself with contract magic was, surprisingly enough, comparable to getting his vaccine shots, in that it was an anxiety-filled walk that ended with a professional applying a prick of pain that left him tired and weary.
He had actually been expecting to pass out for the third time today, so this much was perfectly fine.
The introductions and instructions that came after that though… well he honestly felt like being racist and just referring to the several officers of his chain of command by their skin color and rank since they were all serious grumps whose functions were perfectly interchangeable as far as his activities were concerned, but he knew himself well enough to understand how badly that would go the moment he forgot about their command structure.
More importantly, he was to show what he could do. That was something he wanted to know as well, so he was more than happy to comply.
To begin, he was told to use whatever he could on a straw dummy wearing plate armor.
His first idea was to try and ask for a knife to reinforce with his mana, but ultimately his skill was 'infuse', not 'reinforce' or 'strengthen'. Instead he thought about how to break the dummy on his own, ultimately landing on the idea of Qigong and the upset of small parts destroying structural integrity. So he jabbed it and released a wave of energy that was not so perfectly timed with his punch, but seemed to do the trick, so he went for a straight and indeed, it hurt like a motherfucker.
Also, it dented the breastplate inwards.
His smile seemed to confuse most of his examiners as they talked about his strength being higher than expected however. All except the lady knight from before, who walked forward and crumbled a shoulder plate of the dummy in her left hand and it’s breastplate in her right one.
"That 's not it. His strength is actually below average, he just reduced the breastplate’s durability. I take it you did it during the first punch and the second was to show what you’d done?” Her question was more like a statement, but still he nodded, which seemed to make the few mages present realize what they had seen and, for whatever reason, give him a look of disgust. The more militarist guys were, all contraire, excited at the prospect.
Clearly only the later group understood the implications of such technique in warfare and small scale infiltration.
“I forgot to ask this before, but are you a demon?” Asked the lady knight with a serious expression. To which he readily started palming his scalp, quickly realizing that he had not actually grown a crown of horns or anything of the sort. Sighing in relief, he looked at her and shook his head.
She just looked at him a bit more and then turned to leave. To which he almost reached out to stop her, but then stoped himself from having his bones broken and just called out to the woman.
“Wait.” It was luckily enough to get her attention, and from there it was simple enough to mime the fact that he wanted a knife.
Soon enough, he was failing to make the short blade any sharper. Looking at his stats, he was actually already at half tank with his previous trick and these attempts. That was no good. He’d be absolutely fucked if that was the extent of his magical stamina.
Taking a deep breath and gulping down his anxieties for a moment, he put one of his free points into intelligence and the other in dexterity. Immediately, he gained five mana and one stamina.
‘Alright, that can be really useful, but the implications… Yeah, screw it, i’m not prepared to deal with such big problems at the moment.’
Decided, he held the knife in a reverse grip and did an overhead strike to hit the helmet in front of him, pulsing his intuitive magic forward and inundating the knife with energy for long enough for it to properly pierce the metal equipment. He’d finally timed it right.
[Breakthrough detected. Experience awarded to relevant areas. +1250 XP.
Infuse is now Lv 2
You have learned the skill Basic power strike Lv 1.
You have gleaned the skill Basic enhancement Lv 1. Gain more XP to learn it.
You have gleaned several talents through practice. Repeatedly do so to unlock them.]
‘Well, damn. Maybe i’m not completely screwed.’ He though, right before noting that his level 2 ability now said (250/3000) ‘Fuck, it excalates on a fibonacy sequence and is counting another thousand XP from learning the skill itself, isn’t it?’