3 days of 『Final Immersion Origin』 with no breaks whatsoever in between.
Wonder how my body in the Real World is holding together.
The standard ratio you play at later is 3:1.
Some people play at a 10:1 ratio.
But that requires extra fees to be paid.
Better service and monitoring to ensure you can keep up and don't fry your brain.
I did pass out a few times though.
May there be permanent brain damage already?
I've after all jumped straight into overdrive just a few hours after starting to play.
The worry made me want to log out.
As amazing as this experience had been so far, I am not willing to sacrifice myself for a nice trip.
I sent an inquiry to the GMs about the safety continuing my stint as 1st Class apprentice and expressed my concern about the lack of Real World Clock.
I received an immediate answer, curiously enough.
FIC Inc. is taking its commitments to customer safety and satisfaction seriously. Due to the special nature of your Event we are unable to provide the requested information. We will however make certain that no lasting damage occurs at any time. Once the Safe Limit of 24 Hours Real Time have expired you will be automatically logged out and can request a full medical examination In-House free of charge! Please enjoy your Stay! Best regards, Cynthia, Customer Representative #4729-8708-9470-0002.> 24 hours, eh? Should amount to me logged out at 8 o'clock in the evening give or take some hour or two. This makes a good 12 hours in which I should milk this the most I can. What should I do? I still cannot truly cast any spell, if we ignore identify and the other perception skills. I went on to ask Jess, an Adept, cute, about 24 years, which was studying under Madam Renuras to be a full fledged Master class Healer. She told me if I felt well enough I was to join the other students for classes. Since I had free pick I could go to any teacher whose class was about to start soon. I had the choice between Brown(Earth), Green(Wind) and White(Light). As I expected to spend some more time here, I went with Wind. Cortifex may have lost a good sum betting on my sanity, but he'd not be that resentful about it, would he? "Students, I expect the highest standards of all of you. Until someone better suited for this position can be found I WILL make sure that each one of you does their damnedest best. Am I understood?" A dozen voices shouted: "Understood Sir!" 'Good thing I see the names directly now. Be a pain to ask each time.' "Hey, you're that 1st Class fellow everyone's talking about! My name is Susanoi, I have a talent for Wind and Fire! You are really amazing, aren't you? Please be at my side always!" 'Jeez, girl, take a breath, calm down and don't mistake me for someone who cares.' "Susanoi, pleased to make your acquaintance. I believe we should listen to Master Cortifex." "Indeed you shall! Now, since I have to make sure you understand this, I cannot punish you immediately, which is bad for discipline. But be certain that I will do so once the time is right. You two receive a disciplinary point each." 'Ok, silent treatment during this class. Check.' Susanoi was looking thunderstruck, and quickly proceeded to bury herself even deeper, protesting in a bubbly infuriating manner that netted her yet another point. She was well on her way continuing but was restrained by another girl which clamped her mouth shut. 'Susanoi Lv3 and Tirea Lv5, they seem to be friends. Wonder how such different people came to know each other.' Cortifex continued his class, intensely focusing each of us. "Shaping raw mana is essential mastering any element! With time directly forming your preferred element will become second nature. Until then I expect your utmost dedication mastering these exercises. All elements require control to safely use, especially beyond the basic 6!" What followed were exercises in shaping our mana, restraining it and drawing it back in. Until we had a satisfactory level of control he'd not answer any further questions. As I mostly mastered this yesterday I took very little time to complete this task. Which prompted a gleeful look by Cortifex which went on to make me do some real annoying chores until everyone had finished. "Can I stop lifting that stone now, please Sir Cortifex?" "Yes, your disciplinary point is taken care of. Do not mess up again. I have high hopes for you." "Yes Sir, Thank you Sir!" It took not long for poor Susanoi to follow me in trying to lift a flat stone the circumference of a watermelon into the air, back down and up again using magic. I had found that exercise interesting and at first used the implied to be required wind magic, but quickly remembered the phrasing, 'Magic' not 'Wind Magic'! So I started to use raw magic energy, which we had just learned to shape and control and form into wind elemental magic. Though to use it on a physical object it needed to be 'Force Magic'. Some self proclaimed Force Mages claimed that Force was its own element. Others claimed it was merely an abstract way for mages to channel their raw energy directly. Not everyone was good at it. Most required a medium, most commonly a Staff. We were forbidden to use staffs by Cortifex. With it they could fire a simple magic force missile which did about base magic damage. This was explained by Cortifex, his disgust for the current teaching philosophy which clearly favored the dismissal of the Force element and its implications. I used it and lifting the Stone was quickly becoming childs play. As I grew more confident I was challengine myself to do the same with wind. But by transforming the energy it became far less malleable, with a mind of its own and less traction. It took some deliberation. Making use of the natural qualities of wind I formed a small hurricane, barely enough to lift the rock upwards. No natural twister of that size could do that, but once I got the hang of how to coax the element it became much easier to do the task. Knowing Susanoi would probably spend the rest of the class trying to solve this I felt pity. But I wasn't about to directly help her, I'd ask Cortifex a few questions which might point her in the right direction. As It turned out though, I didn't have to. She did solve it on her own. At first the stone plate slipped, wobbled and crashed often, but not for that long. And here I was thinking her an Airhead. Unfortunately for her, she still had to do the task until the end of his class. Her expression was priceless when she asked if this was sufficient for her to remove the points. She'd have to do this for another three hours, preferably outside of class. He had a special detention class for his regulars, as he called them and invited her to partake. Shouldn't gloat, but really, that was priceless. My first few wind spells were Tornado, Air Hammer and Wind Aura. Depending on your control the Aura could speed you up, deflect arrows and even deflect heavier weapons, raising your evasion and so on. Obviously my most practiced spell was Tornado closely followed by Air Hammer, which really was just a glorified shove. Trying to use it with the stone made me realize how much work I needed to put into this spell to get close to what player mages could do. While they lacked the multi purpose aura, and didn't learn anything near the Tornado I could unleash, their Air Hammer was actually able to do more damage than a regular basic magic missile as well as down an unprepared foe of sufficiently low weight. It was time for lunch, at around 12 o'clock. I had 8 hours left before my stay here would be cut short. The choice between Dark magic, Fire Magic or Water Magic was hard. But eventually I settled for Water Magic. Dealing damage was fine, but healing could turn a prolonged battle on its head. I wasn't quite as sure if I would meet Madam Renuras today. It seemed her services were in demand everywhere. Following the others I soon arrived at the cafeteria for the 1st years. Once we hit the second year we'd get access to the real cafeteria, for some reason it was considered safer for us if we had our own. Stories of exotic food and magic everywhere were dime a dozen. Most here knew others which had attended at some point. Our food was very healthy but also very bland. Unbelievably so in both regards. Quite a few snack packs were shared and the students exchanged their stories, merrily chatting away. Susanoi's over-the-top introduction remained an outlier, most other students could take a hint. I had to repeat my story on how I got here, where I came from and all that, but that was it. Most anyone offered me to join their respective tables and affiliations outside of school, but apart from accepting the former I remained strictly noncommital. Identifying them all and committing to memory their respective strengths I could have done without. Later on 『F.I.O』 allowed you to store all sorts of information, make screenshots and even customize the ui extensively. Remembering the stories and screenshots I really couldn't wait. Once I had made the rounds getting to know as many as possible it was time for the next class. Tirea, the friend of Susanoi also attended Miss Vandenburg's Water Introduction. All students could potentially form any element, casting full blown spells was another matter. Despite some being very narrowly focused talentwise, everyone jumped at the chance to learn from the other teachers. There were some synergies and requirements for higher elements some aimed to master. It was possible to train hard and acquire a talent even without starting with it. I wondered how many here were actually talented in Water. As I checked every student one after the other I noticed Miss Vandenburg grimacing, but not saying anything. Getting into the habit of using that spell as often as possible could land me in trouble, better to not grind during her class. By my count about 7 of the 13 students were highly gifted with water affinity. Miss Vandenburg was not quite as demanding as Cortifex and we got barely anything done in the few hours we spent there. Most of the class was talking and doing anything but listen to the increasingly incoherent teacher. I could only hope she was going easy on us. I learned a few spells and it soon was 15:00. But unfortunately a true heal was not among them. That required more finesse. We got a vitality buff spell instead, because most of us begged her to teach us a heal. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Useful for faster regeneration and defense but not for real injuries. Also something which enabled us to shoot streams of water not much stronger than waterpistols. And that was it. Suffice to mention there was not much of note happening during class. The rest of the Day I was reading and experimenting. First and Second class apprentices had access to a private study with attached lab. A good library on spells and theory plus the lab materials and practice dummies. Jess came by, her job: preventing accidents and offering explanations. She remarked that many second class apprentices had made terrible messes over the years. To my chagrin assimilating spells by reading took time, no gamey fast learn, yet. Jess remarked if I were able to learn any spell from a book today she'd *reward* me. Without a quest popup I chose to ignore the bait. Apparently me being talented did not exclude me from such jokes. It wasn't easy with nary an introduction and practice. Succeeded sort of *learning* many spells, but kept silent. I'd have to test them later. Crafting some booster items came next. At the beginning failures and time taken were high, materials for free made this very appealing to pursue. I tried to make another Intelligence +3 Ring. At the fifth try I got lucky. Together with my looted Rings I had a hands worth, still 5 more to go. Burning through the cheapest materials in the Lab as fast as possible I raised my crafting skill considerably. I also lost track of time. None of my other items made were worth keeping. And I didn't trust my success ratio to waste more good materials on recipes I knew I was not skilled enough making. Did try many for variety, but the effects were either not there or ridiculous. Some items *lowered* stats instead of raising them, which wasn't the worst. 'Maybe they sell as prank articles?' Jess was quite curious how I actually made the stuff. Weird that an NPC takes note of a player using a skill. While I was *crafting* the interface of 『F.I.O』 marked me as *busy*, preventing me from certain other tasks, like say, crafting more or learning spells or fighting or recovering at the fast rest rate. The actual crafting was displayed in a progress bar, the items required taken up by the inventory. I still took them out to observe them carefully, always hoping I'd unlock another Identify spell or finding a useful effect still. No such luck, I guess I have to wait for a while before hidden effects are Identifyable by me. "Jess, you don't find it weird that I make stuff vanish into thin air, but me taking out a Ring a bit later is?" "Sure is, she replied, if you had another such Ring you'd have worn it all day long. Your magic bag is good, but not uncommon. Or is your bag crafting items?" "Uhm, sort of. It is me crafting, inside my bag, actually." "So that is why you've been so absentminded!" 'yeah' While waiting I was going through my stats, skills and spells and inventory, passing time. I had forgotten that the NPCs here treat you staring into the air as just as weird as normal people would. Not a big deal in a village where you barely know anyone and plan to leave soon. Here it was discomforting to interact with realistic NPCs afterwards. They remembered you being weird and treated you accordingly. "Are you able to craft?" I asked her in return. "Mhm, not really. We got taught the basics but I never made anything out of it, didn't really click for me, you know?" "Can you show me how you do it?" "I can try. Here, we have some mats, some silver, a nice gem, a bit of Stardust powder and some Moon Dew drops. First you form the Silver with your mana, mixing it with Stardust. This is difficult, so I may fail. Don't laugh or I'll quit." "Don't worry, I never even knew you can craft with mana." "Good, now be still while I concentrate." She went on and soon the bit of silver liquified and mixed with the Stardust. Then became a Thread which interlocked, forming a Ring shape which got thicker and thicker. I focused my senses to tell how she did it and had a pretty good idea, but I'd ask her to make certain I got it right. This did seem fairly easy compared to the complicated process with tools I got shown 2 days ago. I am not able to craft most things outside of a crafter shop or forge or similarly equipped store. Though many tools were small enough to carry, I did not own them yet. While I wasn't *using* the tools directly, they had to be present. 'I could pilfer the lab, actually.' As she was done, the Ring became solid, with only a bit of it wavering. "The real hard part is making sure the flow of mana inside the Ring is matching our needs. This is hard work without breaking the form. Now I attach and mix the rest, while sticking to the mana flow needed for the Ring I want to make. This can blow up, better stand back, k?" "Sure thing!" A while later she had a Ring made, it had a snake pattern and some expensive materials. Identifying it I whistled. 『Knowledge of the Snake』, a Ring with a magic poison attack, +3 Intelligence and +2 Wisdom and Magic Atk+20. "Wow, that is amazing! How did you do that? I mean, this is so much better than what I just made. You are good at this Jess! Why do you pretend you're not?" She beamed but became serious quickly after. "I was lucky, it was ages since I last tried. Not that I'm old." 'how the hell…' "No really, how did you do that? Please teach me! I got an idea from looking at it, but why is the result so grand? It is a named Ring, this is worth as much as all my weapons combined!" She seemed to relent on sidetracking and started tutoring me on the theory and practical application. This took some time, many shaping exercises and a few splattered metals in the Lab. But in the end I had a Ring made myself. It had only a minor +5% HP Buff, but was made the same way. It was also really really late. Looking at my clock I froze, it was far past midnight. I had skipped a meal voluntarily, thinking I'd log out anyway, but I was still here. Jess looked at me. "What's up?" She was fairly chipper. "It's past 2 already, haven't you noticed?" She blinked, paled slightly and started hushing me. "Don't say anything, we get back now and not a word to Madam Renuras or any of the other girls, you understand?" I nodded. "Good, now take this, you got this faster than I did and this is your reward." She winked at me. I really considered using one of the spells learned. Maybe I'd get something better still. She must have read my expression accurately. Blushed, then looked at me and smiled. "Now come on, we don't have all day, or night!" As we made our way back to the infirmary I bumped into her frequently. Not my fault, really, she was stopping erratically in the dark. 'Hey, stop that!' She was whispering while being awfully close to me. 'Stop what?' 'You know what! Aw, be careful, if we get found out it is hell to pay for both of us. Please~!' I sighed and looked at her, embraced her and whispered: 'Thanks, that was fun, repeat that sometime, ok?' She didn't stiffen, but quickly pushed me away and looked around. I could hear her heart beating like a drum. As I passed her she whispered. 'Too dangerous…' Ok, I hope this wasn't meant for me. As we reached the infirmary the other girls on duty were tending to a freshly woken up. Madame Renuras wasn't to be seen anywhere. Lucky for Jess and me. But the other girls did in the end notice our late arrival, even if they had forgotten about us in the first place. Jess begged and traded favors, asking them to keep quiet. She finally succeeded by trading a few shifts on top. "Don't blame me if I'm cranky in a few days, I won't be getting much sleep for some time." 'What a nice way to put me to bed.' "Nah, I'll do my best not to. Sleep well." 『 Lv6』 Exp: 56.75% | 4,888 / 8,613 HP: 10,658 | +4,150 /m | +1,770 /m | +200 /m MP: 2,960 | +2,220 /m | +1,190 /m | +242 /m Stamina: 2,510 | +1,700 /m Strength: 26 | Vitality: 25 | Endurance: 27 Agility: 29 | Dexterity: 32 Intelligence: 32 | Wisdom: 22 Luck: 27 | (Growth: 12) Attack: Physical: 845 | Magic: 831 Defense: Physical: 435 | Magic: 653 Hit: 75.9 | Evasion: 52.7 Critical %: 48.4 | Critical ×: 5.84 Skills: =Creation: Forging Lv2 0% Crafting Lv4 90% Mana Crafting (custom multipurpose) Lv? Metalworking Lv3 32% Leatherworking Lv2 0% Tailoring Lv2 0% (select for more)* =Tool: Auto-Identify (minor) Lv1 84% Identify (All) Lv8 23% Mana Senses (custom multipurpose) Lv? Repair (All) Lv2 55% Mining Lv3 89% Rapid Looting Lv1 58% (select for more)* =Knowledge: Lore Lv8 88% Mineralogy Lv8 62% Herbalism Lv5 39% Survival Lv2 57% Magic (custom) Lv? (select for more)* =Movement: Dashing Lv9 1% Marathon Lv5 28% Acrobatics Lv5 8% Ambush Expert Lv1 47% Stealth Lv3 45% (select for more)* =Battle: Unarmed Lv6 2% Sword Lv6 2% Knife Lv4 87% Axe Lv2 0% Blunt Lv2 0% Spear Lv3 0% Quarterstaff Lv2 0% Throwing Weapons Lv4 3% Bow Lv4 60% Dual-wielding Lv3 56% (select for more)* Spells: Tornado (custom) Lv? Wind Push(custom) Lv? Super Soaker Lv1 20% Flame (custom) Lv? Rock (custom) Lv? Light Ball (custom) Lv? Shade (custom) Lv? Spark (custom) Lv? =Buff: Vitality Buff Lv1 50% =Aura: Wind Aura (custom multipurpose) Lv? Water Aura (custom multipurpose) Lv? Fire Aura (custom multipurpose) Lv? Earth Aura (custom multipurpose) Lv? Light Aura (custom multipurpose) Lv? Dark Aura (custom multipurpose) Lv? Spark Aura (custom multipurpose) Lv? (select for more)* *Anticipatory Note: The protagonist has learned far too many skills and spells to keep track of without diluting the story. Please expect only significant Skill upgrade information in following chapters. Consider any Element, Spell or Skill he uses from here on out learned in his various training sessions before, now and onwards, i.e. Lightning etc. There have been enough hints about him having access to all forms of magic. He only needs awareness, practice and conscious control to actually use them. Which may or may not keep him from exploring said elements until truly necessary.