Thomas fought the urge to cover his ears as the squealing echoed throughout the small cave he was in. It wouldn't be good to look weak in front of Mark. He wrenched his sword out and mercifully the screaming stopped. Thomas could hear Mark's footsteps behind him as he approached. He tried to suppress the flinch when Mark's bloody hand clapped down on his shoulder. “Good job kiddo” Thomas resisted the urge to tell Mark he wasn't a child, and that he was only five years younger than him, but he could see Holly out of the corner of his eye shaking her head.
Mark didn't do well with other people correcting him. According to some of his friends, the reason that one member of their party disappeared recently was because he pointed out to Mark that he could generate a lot more power in his sword swing if he made a slight adjustment. Of course, in the moment, Mark humoured him and made the change. However, when everyone woke up the next moment he was gone. There were some reports from the people on guard duty that the guy was spotted walking off, further into the cave on his own.
“Thanks, Mark.” Mark clapped his hands together, splattering a small amount of blood over Thomas’s face. “We’ll make a proper soldier out of you yet kiddo.” It was also worth pointing out that Mark was in the military before the whole System thing happened. According to the one guy who was in Mark's unit that got assigned to their tutorial, Mark was by far the best soldier he had ever seen. Courageous, brave, and intelligent were just a few of the descriptors he used. I wonder if he was paid off.
Thomas had his own suspicions about Mark. He seemed way too eager to kill and had little reaction whenever a member of their party died. However, his ruthlessness clearly worked. The last time Mark had told everyone his level, he was at level 17. He was the most powerful person in the tutorial, which was crazy considering there were about one million people.
Well, one million at the start. Lots had died very soon after appearing in the tutorial, whether due to a monster or just from combat with another person. It was hard to get a good guess as everybody was spread all over the cave system that was their tutorial, but Thomas had heard some of the leadership estimating that half the people had died. Thomas almost couldn't believe it. That meant that if the same was happening in all of the other tutorials, there would only be 4 billion people left on Earth when they got back. And, most people assumed they were nowhere near finished with the tutorial. Thomas was scared to think of how many people could have died when everything was finished.
Also, there were his parents and sister. He was fairly sure they weren't in the same tutorial as him, but it could have been possible. But he didn’t think it was very likely. All he could do was hope that they would be okay. Although, he was very thankful to have Holly with him. It was lucky that she ended up in the same tutorial.
Thomas remembered vividly the first time he had seen her. It was his first day in college and he was attending a lecture for statistics or something like that. He could remember walking into the atrium and looking up at the tiered seating to see if there were any women he could sit beside. The main reason he was in college was to get a girlfriend. He just picked a maths course to placate his parents about not being able to get a job once he got out.
Anyway, he could remember his eyes instantly being drawn to this girl at the very back of the seating. As if in a trance, he started walking up the steps. In that moment, he felt as if he was walking up the stairway that would lead to Heaven. As he got closer to the girl he could make out the finer details. She was wearing a lovely green dress that dipped teasingly low on her chest. He could see that her dress was split down the side, exposing her lovely, smooth chocolaty legs leading into those wide hips-
“Thomas! Are you fucking daydreaming? Hurry up!” Jolted out of his daydream, Thomas turned and followed the party out of the cave, thankfully leaving the disgusting smell of blood behind. Almost as a habit when he had nothing else to do, he brought up his status.
Name
Thomas Francis
Age
27
Race
Human - F
Class
Mage - F
Level
8
Strength
14
Vitality
15
Constitution
N/A
Dexterity
11
Stamina
8
Agility
N/A
Intelligence
26
Energy
18
Perception
N/A
Of course, his progress when compared to Marks was nothing. Mark hadn’t told anyone about his class, but it was easy to guess. Unbelievable strength, huge muscles. He was a warrior. Or so Thomas was told by some of his friends more familiar with video games than he was. Thomas thought it fitted his personality fairly well.
- - -
Tutorial #1001
Aodh awoke to a flashing blue screen hovering over him.
Warning! Your mana channels are almost damaged beyond repair. Refrain from using non attuned mana and let them recover naturally.
Oh shit. That cannot be good. Must be connected with the burns in some way. Tentatively, he got to his feet, expecting pain but there was nothing. His body felt normal. Well, as normal as it could feel after being magically healed from almost certainly life changing injuries. So, I’m making a lot of big assumptions here, but I’m guessing that mana channels are what the mana flows through every time it enters my body. I'm just realising there's a lot that I don't know. I suppose if I can't use mana, I won't be able to protect myself. I was lucky that the first three sheep were light enough for me to lift.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Despite everything that had happened, it still felt a bit surreal for Aodh. He didn't really know what to do. He was in this strange situation he had no idea about. And, he had almost died a few times. He sighed and lay back down on the ground, and stared up at the clear blue sky. Was the sky he was seeing even real? How did he know that he wasn't still in the forest, and this was some hallucination brought on reaching the end of his life? He had to confront the uncomfortable reality that he just didn't know.
He didn't know if what he was experiencing was real or fake. In the back of his mind, maybe he didn't want to accept this was his new reality, only to wake up, back in the forest or in a hospital bed. He didn't want to have hope that he could live his life properly, only for his hope to be crushed again, like all those years ago when he finally realised there would be no cure for his disease.
However, if everything he was experiencing was real, then he should try and do all he could to take advantage of it. If it was real, he now had the ability to fire flames from his hands and god knows what else, and if he was making the right assumptions, grow so strong that he would never have to feel the way he did, back when he discovered his life was stolen from him. Aodh let out a bitter laugh. What pain would he prefer, having his hope crushed once again, or looking back on his life and realising he could have made something out of it?
He didn't know how long he lay there, staring at the sky he didn't know was real. Eventually, he came to a decision. He would try to learn everything about this System and become so strong that his life wouldn't be controlled by anyone or anything other than himself. The first step was figuring out what happened with his arms and what he could do about it. From what he could gather, mana was his main weapon, and he didn't want to be without his weapon.
Now relieved of the pressure he didn't know he was carrying, Aodh jumped up to his feet. The first thing he did was open his status and skill sheet to see what he could learn.
Name
Aodh
Age
19
Race
Human - F
Class
Mage - F
Level
10
Strength
3
Vitality
4
Constitution
N/A
Dexterity
4
Stamina
2
Agility
N/A
Intelligence
36
Energy
24
Perception
3
Free points
6
I should probably work on increasing my physical attributes with the free points I have. I don't think I ever want to increase constitution again. My intelligence and energy are both high, and they seem to be the main attributes that a mage focuses on, so I can just leave them to increase naturally whenever I level up. Seeing the energy attribute sparked a memory in Aodhs mind and he quickly inspected it, confirming his suspicions.
Energy
This is a measure of your mental strength and your mana reserves. The higher your energy, the less likely that you will be caught in illusions, and the more freedom you have when using active skills. Also, the higher the energy, the more mana you have to use for skills and other applications.
The keywords there were ‘mana reserves’. From what Aodh could remember, when he produced the flames and the earthen wall, he always felt like the coldness was entering his body. From the wording of the explanation, he was supposed to use his own personal source. He remembered back to the flashing screen he saw when he woke up. The warning told him to refrain from using mana that wasn't attuned to him. He groaned in frustration. The injuries he suffered could have been prevented if he paid more attention to the description of the different attributes. He had no one to blame but himself.
So, that means as long as I find a way to use my own mana, it'll all be fine. Right? Curious, Aodh sat back down and got into the meditative position he had tried what felt like ages ago. The wording of the attribute description implied that the reserve could be found inside his own body. I may as well try the chest or stomach first. Fairly typical for mythical power sources. He closed his eyes and focused on his chest. He couldn't feel anything. Can I try and visualise it? Would that help? Unsure of how to visualise mana reserves, Aodh just went with what he associated with a reserve; a lake.
I'm imagining this nice clear lake fairly well, but how do I know this is the real thing? I am imagining it after all. I suppose I try and draw mana from it. If it works, it’s the reserve. How do I draw the mana? With the sheep, it felt more instinctive than natural. Do I just visualise water leaving the lake? Aodh imagined a small stream of water flowing from the lake and around his body. A few seconds later, he shivered as he felt a blast of cold travel around his body.
{Mana Manipulation} has levelled up.
It is now level 2
Aodh ignored the skill notification and continued to send blasts of mana around his body. It felt calming. Slowly, he increased the amount of mana under his control until he was sending almost half of his reserve shooting through the pathways around his body. He could see more notifications appear in the corner of his vision but continued to ignore them. Almost in a trance, Aodh paid increased attention to how the mana interacted with the pathways in his body, especially in his arms.
The pathways there were blacked, almost as if they had been burned. I suppose they were in a way. Whenever his own mana reached those sections, it slowed down. Not by a significant amount, but enough for Aodh to notice. Without thinking about it, he stopped the flow of mana through his body and concentrated it where the damaged channels were. Surprisingly, the coldness of the mana was soothing.
Aodh opened his eyes and almost fell backwards in shock. His arms were glowing blue. The blue was the most intense where the burns were the worst. Without thinking, he moved his mana out of his arms and the glowing stopped. Fascinated, he cycled the mana around his body again, noticing his arms lit up whenever the mana flowed through them. This is weird. I don't think this is supposed to happen.
He decided to take a risk. Despite the warning implying that it would be safe to use his own mana, he was still a bit apprehensive. He gathered a small amount of mana in his arms and sent the rest back to the lake. Trying to ignore the brilliant blue glow lighting up the area he was in, he inspected the fire manipulation skill.
Skill
Description
Fire Manipulation
Allows the user to manipulate fire, as well as generate it for a mana cost that scales with the amount of fire produced.
Unsure of how he knew what to do, he focused on the skill, and what he wanted to happen. He visualised a fireball appearing in front of his hand, and pushed the mana out of his body. Aodh almost lost his focus as a ball of fire, about as big as an American football, burst into existence in front of his face. Quickly, he tilted his head backwards to avoid more burns, but managed to keep his focus.
How the hell do I fire this? Do I throw it? Will it shoot off by itself? Acting on a hunch, Aodh drew a small amount of mana from his reserve and pulled it towards his hand. He could feel himself start to sweat. It was getting harder and harder to maintain his focus and not lose control of the mana. He didn't really want to see what would've happened if he lost control of a fireball about a metre from his face.
When the other mana got to his hand, he pushed it out without trying to apply any skill to it. That resulted in a small, bright blue, paper thin surface, floating in the air behind the fireball. Slowly, as to not make any last second mistake, Aodh moved the unformed mana closer to the fire until it was almost rubbing against it. He took a few deep breaths to try and calm down before he tried to attempt to blast the fireball off into the distance.
With one fast push, Aodh propelled the unformed mana away from him, taking the fireball with it. As both constructs of mana flew away, Aodh could feel a connection he wasn't conscious of before starting to weaken. As a precaution, he covered his ears. Just a few moments later, he could feel the connection to both constructs cut off, followed by an explosion about four hundred metres away.
Excitedly, Aodh rushed to the site of the explosion, eager to see the results of his impromptu experiment. When he arrived at the still smoking crater, he whistled. “That is fucking cool as shit.” Instead of nice green grass, there was a crater about a metre and a half deep, and about five metres wide. Excited to see the gains he had made, Aodh opened his notifications.
{Fire Manipulation} has levelled up 10 times.
It is now level 18
{Mana Manipulation} has levelled up 7 times.
It is now level 8
Congratulations! One of the hidden conditions for the evolution of the Mage class has been met!
Requirements for class evolution
-Level up any manipulation skill ten times or more in one go
-Hidden
-Hidden
-Hidden