Author’s Corner: Enjoy the chapter! Sorry again for the lateness, the only thing worse than preparing for the holidays is cleaning up after them.
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The rest of the day passed by without much incident. The house AI alerted me that a deposit had been made to my account, which made me happy. With that, I could pay the bills for a bit longer, at least. However, there wasn’t another call from the police today. Either no more slimes spawned, or they had been able to take care of everything that appeared.
Instead of religiously training my Void Affinity, I stopped late that night after reaching 8%, and decided to test out whether other game systems transferred over to the real world. First, the inventory. I was a bit surprised to find that it was the same size as the one on my game character, but at the same time it was entirely empty. This only confirmed again that the only way for me to transfer items would be to use the grove. Next, my friend’s list.
When I opened my friend’s list, I saw all of the same names as from the game. Jacobs, Sharon, Dravin, and Marion. However, except for Sharon, they all had the word ‘Unavailable’ next to their names. Does that mean that they are logged in? It wouldn’t be weird if the real world couldn’t connect to chat with the game. On the other hand, it’d be extremely weird if it could, given the time differences.
For the time being, I decided not to call Sharon. Maybe later, but for right now I needed to talk with Jacobs. Hopefully, the chat wouldn’t take too long, as I just wanted a simple explanation. “Computer, can you connect to my NeoLife contact list?”
“Affirmative.” The mechanical voice responded.
“Alright, please do so, and send a message to contact Jacobs that I need to have a word with him, if he can log out for a few minutes.” If need be, I could temporarily disable the spell formation in my room and log in. It would just be a matter of removing the Seed of Void and filling the formation with wind mana. In fact, now that I thought about it, even if I just removed the Seed of Void from the formation, it would still work properly now that it’s been activated. I could create more throughout the house and just activate them with the same seed.
Something to think about when I get Void Affinity to 10% I sighed mentally, shaking my head as I awaited the response. I didn’t take too long before it came. “What’s up, man?” I could hear Jacobs’ voice over the hologram call, and could guess he logged out.
“A bit inconvenient for me to log into the game right now, and wanted to have a word with you. You’ve got Enchanting up to Basic, right?” This was what I needed to call him for. Although it might not be a proper lesson, I could at least get a basic explanation from him and start enchanting special effects onto items.
“Hmm? Yeah, a while back. Guessing you picked it up too, and need advice on the second stage of enchanting items?”
“Pretty much. If you know about what’s happening here on the outside, you can understand why I don’t have the time to go find a trainer.”
I could hear a sigh from the other end of the call. “Yeah, I heard about that a couple days ago. Alright, the trick to it isn’t that complicated. Basically, you just have to create a spell effect, and link it to the aura of an item with a rune that will activate it.”
“Don’t suppose you know which rune…?”
This time it was a chuckle. “Depends on the purpose of the enchantment. Usually, it’s a simple ‘trigger’ rune, unless you want the ability to be constantly active, or only activate in certain circumstances, in which case you need to get creative. The hard part is finding somewhere to add the spell in without collapsing the aura. If the effect is activated by the trigger rune, then you can just place it so that the outer edges of the two are touching. However, if it is a more involved effect, you’ll need to find somewhere to properly integrate them.”
I nodded, thinking it over. “And the need for the elemental seeds?”
“Hmm? Ah, that’s just to basically let the enchanter prepare the spell if they are not able to do so by themselves. For instance, I have no ability to produce a good water spell. They’re also used as fuel to fuse a runic elemental spell with an item.”
“Alright, thanks. I’ll try it out here in a little bit.” With that taken care of, we said our goodbyes, and I laid on the couch again to rest. I began thinking what I would like to enchant. In the game, obviously I wanted to enchant my weapons, maybe my armor. However, I didn’t have any gear yet in the real world, and I didn’t have a crafting profession that would let me make any.”
If I had the Metal Affinity, I could just make myself a simple sword. Add in the Plasma and Magnetic Affinities, and I might be able to construct a basic beam saber to mimic the one I had in the game. For right now, though, I needed something more basic.
After letting myself sleep for a while, I woke up and had a simple breakfast, making sure to keep my Aura Sight up constantly. I didn’t want to risk a monster spawning around me, after all. Once I was done eating, a simple breakfast of bacon and eggs, I sent my mind into my grove, searching around. My void area of my grove had grown to be several times the size of my grove itself. Likely, void space took very little mana to maintain compared to other elements.
Breaking off a piece of my grove, I gathered it and sent it into the void area, surrounding it with a bit of wind to make a tiny, separate grove. Once that was done, I planted one of the poisonous fruits I had gotten from the jungle planet, wanting to make a tree to harvest the medicinal sap. Casting my attention back onto my main grove, I smoothed out the area where the earth had been taken, and then snapped a single branch from the enrichment fruit tree. Finally, I brought the branch out of my grove and let it appear in front of me.
With a bit of Plant Manipulation, I managed to warp the branch into a simple staff, and began enchanting it. Though, the only enchantment I put on it was to create a void field. Like Jacobs had said, I created the spell effect in front of me, and then brought it to the aura of the staff until the two sides just barely touched. Finally, I ‘glued’ the two auras together with the ‘trigger’ rune. Immediately, the aura of the enchantment dimmed, much like a device that had been turned off.
If it’s like this, I won’t even need the seeds for my own enchanting… I sighed, realizing that they really wouldn’t have much purpose for someone already capable of using this kind of magic. However, at this time, I got another call from the police. Officer Faraday, who at this rate seems to have been chosen as my liaison, appeared on the hologram.
“Mr. Hulett, time to go to work.” He said with a serious expression, making me nod my head in acceptance.
“Details?” I looked at the hologram, wondering if I’d be able to afford a more detailed one at this rate.
“Not really sure how to describe it… 14th Street, just outside city hall. If I had to call it something, it’d be a living tornado. It just appeared out of nowhere, and everyone’s panicking. Head over quickly, and take care of it.”
I blinked a bit, and Celeste appeared on my wrist just as the call ended. “Still rude… but what does he mean a living tornado?”
“Probably a wind elemental. Hadn’t expected them to start spawning this soon, and it might be troublesome.” I groaned as I applied a quick enchantment to the shirt I was wearing, a runic one to let it adapt to my form. This was the same enchantment that my armor in the game had come with, so it wasn’t too hard to copy. After that, I ran outside and activated Aspect of the Bird to create my angel wings, taking this chance to summon Yin and Yang as well.
They were overjoyed to be summoned again, and instantly began rubbing up against me. However, I quickly told them that we had a situation to take care of, and we all three took off into the sky. City hall was an old building, made back in the 1900s, but had been modified a bit in the last fifty or so years to be more stable. It was very easy to spot, especially when I used Aura Sight and saw the mass of wind mana converging in front of it. However, something seemed wrong.
Although people were running and screaming, and the elemental appeared to be chasing them, it was not launching any attacks aside from knocking aside large objects that were right next to it. Is it mindless? That would certainly help. With that thought in mind, I dove down towards the creature with my birds. I had no confidence in fighting a wind elemental in control of wind mana, but I still had plenty of other things that I could do. I could at least devote a bit of my attention to absorbing the excessive wind mana.
However, the moment I landed, I heard something in the back of my mind that caught me off guard. It sounded like a little girl crying. Don’t run away, please.. somebody help..
Looking over, I could tell that Yin had heard the voice as well, but Yang was still vigilant against the creature. Oh, don’t tell me… Looking at the elemental, I felt a bit of pain in my chest as I activated a void field around it, a bubble to stop its wind mana from going out of control. Although it could not negate the blasts of wind, it could slow them down enough to prevent property damage.
Focusing, I tried to use the same technique I had used to communicate with Arriane, except this time with wind mana. ’Hello? Can you hear me?’ I made sure to allow my wind mana to go through the void field without being suppressed.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The moment I ‘spoke’, the elemental whipped around to face me. If I didn’t have a theory about what was going on, I probably would have been terrified right now. I mean, a living tornado just focused its full attention on me. Sure, it was only two meters tall, but still, that was a living tornado after all. ’I can’t hear you right now, I’m using my power to stop your wind from causing too much damage. I need you to calm down a bit, and then we can talk. Can you do that for me?’
It had no head, so obviously it couldn’t nod. However, after a few moments, I felt the strength of the wind lowering slightly. With a sigh of relief, I lifted the void field. The elemental seemed to be able to sense that, because afterwards she spoke to me, in a frightened little voice. ’You can really understand me?’
New Ability Unlocked!
Voices of the Wind - Wind Affinity - ☆
By understanding the principles behind Worldcasting, you are able to communicate with species that have a high Wind Affinity by using wind mana.
I nodded my head. ’That’s right… Can you tell me your name? And how old are you?’
’I… I’m Tessa, and I’m six… can you help me mister..? Everyone is running away… I didn’t do anything wrong…’ I could hear how sad she was as her voice was carried along the wind mana.
’I’ll do what I can. Tell me, did you play a new game? It would have been in a shiny silver capsule that just arrived at your house.’ I could at least hold onto the hope that people weren’t randomly being changed into monsters without logging into the game.
I swore I heard a sniffling sound from the elemental in front of me, who had calmed down enough that she was no longer a tornado. Instead, she was all but invisible unless I used my Aura Sight. ’That… that’s right. Something life… I thought mommy bought it for me…’
There was another stabbing pain in my heart as I heard about that. Some child randomly got in the game, and thought it would be fun to play as an elemental. How could she have known that she would turn into the creature she chose to play as? Her mother might not have even noticed that she played the game, and thought she went missing. ’I’ll do what I can, I promise. For now, can you show me where you live? I’ll take you back to your mom and explain what’s going on.’
I could feel a bit of acceptance from Tessa at that, and she slowly glided down the sidewalk, with me following behind. Suddenly, from my wrist I heard Celeste speak up. “What happened? Why wasn’t there a fight? There was supposed to be a fight, right?”
I shook my head, and couldn’t help but be sad at this situation. “No, just a little girl who was scared.” While we were walking, I started to think of ways that I might be able to help. If I was better with my shapeshifting, I might be able to turn her human again. However, I was a long ways off from even having myself take on a full racial shift, let alone performing it on someone else.
“Ohh… I’m sorry…” Celeste spoke out sadly from my wrist, and I nodded my head slightly. After we walked for a while, we arrived in front of a small house with blue walls and a dark brown roof, and there were two police cars out in front. Having an idea what they were here for, I walked up to the front door and knocked on it. Thinking about Celeste had given me an idea on how I could at least help them talk to each other.
A few moments later, a police officer(still human by the looks of him) appeared at the door and looked to me. “Can I help you with something, son?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re here about the missing girl, right? Tessa?”
He blinked at my question, but then appeared to be on guard against me, thinking I might have something to do with the disappearance. “How do you know about that?”
“I met her a few minutes ago. It’s a bit hard to explain, but she’s here right now.” I sighed slightly. “She got into their Seed, she said.”
His eyebrows furrowed as he thought about that. “Do you have any way to prove your claim?”
“I was just called to a scene in front of the city hall. I guess you could say that I’m the local monster hunter now?” I weakly smiled at that, and he nodded as he looked at my wings. Apparently, that bit of information had been spread around. “Living tornado was running amok. When I got there, I was able to speak with it, and it turned out to be Tessa.”
His face paled slightly as he understood the implications of that. It meant that the little girl was no longer human, by any stretch of the imagination. “I think it’d be best for you to come inside.” He stepped aside, holding the door open.
Looking over to Tessa, I nodded and sent her another message through the wind. ’It’ll be alright now, we’re going to see your mom. But you’ve got to stay calm for me, okay?’ I felt another weak acceptance, and then walked through the door, my two birds perched on my shoulders as if they had never left.
I could feel Tessa walk through the door behind me, just before it was closed by the officer. Just before we reached what was likely the living room, he stopped me so that he could go explain to her mother what was going on. After a few minutes, I could hear a loud crying from the room beyond, and a second officer signaled me in.
Inside the living room, I saw a young woman leaning forward while sitting on the couch, her face in her hands as she sobbed. Her hair was a mess, and she was being comforted by the officer that had gone in ahead of me. After a moment, she looked up at me and spoke, her voice broken by her cries. “Can you… can you really… is she here?” I nodded my head.
“She can’t understand anyone right now but me, but I think I can make something to let you talk to her, if you want.” After I spoke, I could see a faint light of hope in her eyes, and she nodded her head quickly. “I’ll need an item to work with. She’s a wind elemental right now, and can only speak by using the wind. I can enchant an item to let you take in the wind to understand her, and emit wind mana when you speak so that she can hear you.”
“Will it… will it let me talk to my baby girl again?”
“If it works, it will. She said she played NeoLife, so there is still a chance to turn her back to normal, but I’m not sure if it’ll work. When I had just started the game, someone told me that it was possible to pay for a character reset. With what’s happened, I don’t know if it’s still an option, but if it is…”
She nodded her head quickly again. “I’ll.. I’ll check. If it’ll help her get back to normal... “
I smiled slightly. “After I train more, I might be able to turn her back myself, but my skills aren’t good enough yet, and I wouldn’t want to risk it on a little girl unless I was absolutely sure. Now, do you have something I can enchant? It’d be best if it wasn’t too valuable, because if the enchantment fails, it might break.”
She seemed to think about it for a moment, before looking down at her bracelet. It was a simple chain link bracelet, likely a gift she had had for a long time. “Would.. would this work?”
I looked at it and nodded. “I’ll need you to take it off for a minute, but it should work perfectly.” Given how magic circles seemed to prevent the release of magic, I was hopeful that a circular object would be able to hold an enchantment well. She quickly took the bracelet off, and then carefully handed it to me. The ‘spell’ that I was enchanting the bracelet with was one I was only all too familiar with, and would essentially be a cultivation tool for wind mana. As long as she wore it in an environment that had a lot of wind mana(which would always be the case around her daughter), she would naturally take in the mana, releasing some of her own at the same time. That should let her communicate with Tessa the same way I do.
The tricky part was rigging it to work. Like Jacobs had said, I would need more than just a trigger rune for something like this. I ended up overlapping the auras of the two objects slightly, and connecting them with two ‘passive’ runes. When I was done, I handed it back to her to try out.
Hesitantly, after putting the bracelet back on, she looked around. “Tessa..?”
There was a sniffling sound from the air, and the mother immediately looked hopeful. ’I’m here, mommy…’
Obviously, I was still not completely satisfied. Even though they could speak, a mother that could never hold her daughter was a tragic sight. Who knows how many other little boys or girls climbed into the Seeds without knowing? How many turned into something that their parents could no longer see or touch, or even speak with. I had the feeling I would be needing to get to my full Xeno-Shifter status soon in order to fix things. “I’ll be back when I can help turn her back to normal. I hope you won’t have to wait for me to be able to, though…” I said softly as I turned around to leave, letting the mother speak with her daughter as I showed myself out.
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Author’s Basement: This chapter is a good bit longer than normal… but the feels it gave me were real.