Trial and error. The basic steps of life.
Tetsu experimented with his symbol that might become a hack for life and perhaps even godhood. Yet the style he chose to create this hack was playful.
Yes, it was a game, and Tetsu enjoyed every second. Lost in his muse, life was nothing but a game. He won every round, even though the result yielded an error. Error meant knowledge, and in a world filled with unknown factors, every failure became a path to success. Also, an error gave him the chance to test out an even better and crazier theory.
Fire, water, earth, and air are the four basic elements. Even their symbols closely resembled each other. But this isn’t what Tetsu was after. He didn’t even care about their next forms or sub-elements.
His intent was clear, mana-focused, knowledge filled to the brim, and source ever present, Tetsu just lacked the right symbol to accomplish his ultimate goal.
He compared English letters with their respective symbols of enforcement. Next, he compared his childish drawing.
Switch, cut, modify, and trail. Tetsu worked on several symbols simultaneously as his muse declined a few creations before Tetsu tested them out.
Tetsu got lured into the realm of lines and curves. Each curve spoke to him and pointed him in the right direction. His heart ached in this realm. Not the fatal kind, but the gentle squeeze as one finds love.
The symbols blazed at a distance as Tetsu got nearby. He could feel the heat on his skin. A gentle tug on his heart, telling him to move closer.
Before testing the new symbol, Tetsu smiles. He foresaw its succession before the actual process.
For the last time, Tetsu places his palm over the new symbol. It took a whole for him to calm himself and focus and once he did a 'ding!' Sound proved his Precognition.
A stream of information floods into Tetsu’s mind before his system notification rings him up about his success.
The soil beneath Tetsu comprised several vivid mud particles that complimented each other to support wildlife. Mana is stored and transmitted with ease between these particles. These soils are the concussion of alchemists who primarily make them for tutorial grounds. Large mixtures of these soils are harmful to normal plant life, as they require high amounts of mana to maintain. Under tutorial grounds, they have plenty of Mana and help vicious plant life to thrive and grow faster, while in any other circumstance, they would drain the life out of any being that sets foot on the soil. By a simple process, they suck out every inch of mana and starve the body to death. If in time they don’t receive more mana, they themselves die instantly by exhaustion.
You might wonder why Tetsu knows all of this. If you twist this question a bit and wonder how he knows all these facts, you will understand the simple fact.
Tetsu learned a rather simple symbol similar to our Bluetooth icon back on Earth. Moon and Mars have weirder symbols, but that’s a topic for a later date. This symbol of enforcement is called info or information. In a world unknown, Tetsu found a hack to know it all. Starting with his first test subject, the ground beneath him, a deluge of information about tutorial ground invaded Tetsu’s mind.
“Plain old simple mud has so much information hidden behind...” Tetsu coughs out blood.
His vision gets blurry and his mind plays tricks, showing the bloodstains dance. “Overdid it a–” Tetsu croaks mid-sentence and collapses on his back.
During his muse run, he pushed his body, brain, and mana over and beyond their limit. Now all the backlash from the three powers attacked his health pool and spiked his fatigue levels.
Fatigue: -2… -13… -24… -25…
Points kept dropping while Tetsu still couldn’t process any information to help himself. They sucked his resources out of his body. Simple factors such as thirst and hunger grew into unreasonable cravings.
Tetsu’s muscles lost their mass while his nerves lost their blood. In a split second, his body shrunk inward, exposing his skeleton. The skin covering his skeleton starts to peel off.
“This is it...” He tries yet cannot force a smile.
As one last wish, he wanted to cry his eyes out, but his body wouldn’t allow him any water or movement.
His pain overwhelmed his senses long ago. Now, even though it hurt, he felt nothing.
Kile’s last moments came to mind. Tetsu wonders how he proved a point while death stood on his doorstep. That damn fool smiled, to prove or point or just show he can, but he smiled. If he can smile, then why not me? Tetsu tries with the rest of his might left, yet fails to imitate Kile.
Out of options and with nothing left to do, Tetsu lies still, accepting his fate, never regretting his actions in the slightest. Reason’s be dammed, possible futures can fuck themselves, and if’s and maybe’s can stand in line behind possible futures.
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Tetsu accepted his end. End of story.
As a last experiment, he tries and open his system. Better than suffering in his last moments, he plans to skim through all his progress and status.
Name: Tetsü K Tenco.
Race: Human {---} Level: 01 | Initiate |
“Ha! Still at level one... Well, that sucks.”
Class: Forger.
“Huh! What can you do?” Tetsu raises a mental question mark. Which in turn raises a system screen.
[Imitation is the first step toward mastery. Be it a unique skill or a copy, one starts their journey by copying a master. Masters are rare individuals, while Forgers are rarer and ever-present around unique masterpieces, ready to make copies. Every master requires a cheap imitation of the display. Forger class helps you follow any process to perfection. As your skills and levels increase, so will your forging skills. One day your imitation shall be on par with true art, never to figure the fake from real.]
“Call me a fraud and get over it...” Tetsu sighs within himself. “And rarer? Is that even a word or is my screen making up words just to insult me? I swear I was better before I opened you.” Tetsu scolds his system. “Damn, my curiosity.” He gives a mental command to close this screen and open his notifications.
Unlike his status, Tetsu regained his pride from his notifications. “Not bad.” He praises himself.
From the top, his accomplishments piled on.
[Ding! You have unlocked a basic skill: Mana injection. Level: initiate. Rarity: Common.]
“Learnt that shit from scratch with no help as I fought to survive... well, I am dying now! But still.” Tetsu gives an imaginary finger to the rarity tag.
[Ding! You have used the ancient rune letter “Fire,” from the Ru’nic power system of Rome.]
“Catchy! Wait, how old is Rome?”
[Skill available: Matchstick. Sometimes a matchstick’s worth of light is enough to find your way, light up lost hope, and start devastating fires. Every disaster starts with a spark. One step further, you hold a matchbox worth of flames. Place it in the right place and you can start a forest fire of your own. Cost: 1 mana per minute. Levels: Initiate. Rarity: common.]
“And we are back to mockery.” Tetsu lets it slide both literally and figuratively.
[Do you want to learn the skill?]
[Y/N]
“Dumping an ability into me? Interesting... what is a skill?”
[Skills are abilities activated by system commands. A set of rules is taken, modified, and enforced by your system as the process of creating an action is cut short. In an intense battle, every second can determine life or death. The System bypasses conventional ways to speed up the process with pre-written commandments.]
“Damm sweet deal. So, it’s like any other modern tool that also takes into account Mana. Who the fuck designed this?” Tetsu asks but gets no reply. “Secret huh!” He lets out a deep internal sigh. “So many secrets... I’m glad I am dying, otherwise, these mysteries will be the end of me.”
Tetsu played way too many games and knew way too much about life to fall for this age-old trap. “Thanks for the progress bar, but I decline.” He selects ‘N’, hoping it means no. Tetsu planned to train harder and get a better skill or learn the darn attack on his own without a skill limiting his ability to grow. Above all, his OT mind couldn’t skip out on the process.
Skills were another form of hack. Skip the process of gathering wood, creating a spark, and hoping it ignites. One can just use this advanced lighter to create fire. Mana is the only fuel required.
For sure, Tetsu wanted and plans to use this hack in the future. But first came research on how the system decides to hand off these hacks, and an even more pressing matter was why?
“Mysteries, mysteries, mysteries...” Tetsu scrolls on.
[Skill available: Incubate drops. Trickle water with care to grow herbs even under the hottest sun. Each droplet is rich in mana and purity, which helps herbs and plant life flourish. Constant uses of these drops help increase the rarity of the plants. By using higher rarity herbs for alchemy, the concussions usually come out a tier higher. Cost: 4 MPM. Levels: Initiate. Rarity: Rare.]
[Do you want to learn the skill?]
[Y/N]
“Okay.... first of all. ALCHEMY is a thing.” Tetsu’s heart squeezes harder, almost rupturing, unable to be excited and in pain at the same time.
To confirm his suspicion, Tetsu questions and gets a known response to alchemy. He had reasons to believe that choosing this skill might lead down to a path where he becomes an alchemist.
Another class, or would it be a hobby?
Yet Tetsu chooses an experiment instead. The skill he declined like a fool left his system notifications. Means now he can never pick said skill. Picking skills at random was even more dangerous. Game rule one-O-one. Hack they might be, but every hack comes with a daunting price tag.
Say one picked fire and only gets fire suggestions, skipping over the mastery of water and wind magic. The hack has equal amounts of risks as compared to benefits. In most cases, even more so, and without enough data or a billion experiments, Tetsu would not choose.
Tetsu tries to control his excitement as his elevated emotions squeeze the life out of him faster. “Cool down kid. There are still a few notifications I want to see before I die.” He scrolls to the next notifications.
For his last experiment, he made and placed skills in a separate folder. Tetsu wanted to see if the skills would disappear on their own if he didn’t pick them or if would they restrict other skills with similar or greater attributes. There also hung a huge possibility of having limited slots to hold skills.
Not to mention that having too many choices only makes the decision much harder. Like buying toys as a kid or certificates as an adult. Too many skills, either it be in real life or in a game, will only hinder your progress.
Pick one or a few and master the crap out of them if you desire success.
Tetsu throws another skill into the folder. This skill helped him detect water like a metal detector. “Sounds tempting, but pass for now. If you got food detection, I am all ears or eyes‽”
Other skills were “Spark,” which can produce a bit of static electricity, “Relaxing wind,” which gives a gentle cold breeze, “Detect,” to detect natural currents vaguely, and “Florist,” for creating the best weather to grow plants. All of these skills went under the same “Skills tomb” folder.
In a trance and lost in plans, his vision fades away… yet his mind runs simulations.
Three magic systems presented themselves. A tremendous leap for Tetsu and his childish wish to throw a fireball. Mana, the mysterious third pillar of power. Ru’nic system of the Roman empire. Skills coded by the ominous System.
Deep within… as darkness consumed Tetsu’s consciousness—While his subconscious mind drew a conclusion of its own.
“Ru’nic magic... Let’s start here!”
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