World Seed: Game Start (28 page)

Apparently,
they felt the sense of danger over my mental link, rushed over as
soon as the fight was over, sensing that I was in pain. I couldn’t
help but soften a bit towards the birds when I found out how worried
they were about me, though at the same time I confirmed that the
Aspect of the Armored Beast hadn’t deactivated when I was
briefly knocked unconscious. On the other hand, my Aura Sight skill
had been disabled, since it was something I had to constantly focus
on.

Since
I didn’t particularly feel safe before I arrived in town, I
kept the aspect spell up for a while longer. First thing I’d
need to do would be study the bodies of the two bears. Correction,
first thing to do was spend my points from leveling up. I felt like I
had enough wisdom for now, but my mana pool was lacking, so I spent
all ten points in intelligence, bringing my mana up to an even five
hundred. With that, I should be able to shift into a wolf, according
to my estimates. I could test that out when I make my way back to the
pond. Would also be fun to test out a combination of wolf form, snake
scales, and bird wings. Would be like a tiny feathered dragon…
sort of.

Either
way, about ten minutes after I left the scene of the previous fight,
I decided to take a rest. With my current mana regeneration, ten
minutes was enough to recover most of my mana. One final Alchemic
Heal spell rid me of the last bit of soreness from the fight, and
after that I made a small barrier around myself with Earth
Manipulation. Nothing major, just a wall to keep random mobs from
charging at me while I worked.

With
that done, I went ahead and pulled out the two bears. Two my
surprise, I had managed to grab both a male and a female bear, which
made me rather happy. Going by what Jarl had told me before, this
would be the key to letting me control my gender when I shifted
forms. As for what other traits I wanted to copy from the bears, I
was hoping to copy their muscular frames to make myself stronger, but
in order to do that I’d probably need to do a full shift. I
wasn’t experienced enough to just single out muscle mass and
add it to myself.

The
first bear I studied was the female one, which had been the one
unfortunate enough to burn to death. Then again, the other was
unfortunate enough to die from a headbutt… I wasn’t
really sure which one to feel more sorry for. Either way, I fully
studied the aura for this bear over the course of an hour, before
moving on to the other one. From there, I compared notes on the two,
measuring where they were similar and different. After noting the
differences between them, I looked at the male side of the
differences, and compared them to the wolf aura I had studied, and
finally my own.

Although
there were some minor differences, I managed to identify four parts
of the aura that were nearly identical between the male bear, wolf,
and myself. These same aura components were completely different when
compared to the female bear and lovebirds. Assuming my assumptions
were correct, and yes that is quite an assumption, those should be
the parts that determine gender.

As
such, to test this theory out, I tried it on myself. Seeing how
excited the birds almost got, I did NOT turn into a male lovebird,
but a female half-elf. That lasted for all of a minute of me oggling
my own chest like a mad person before I changed back, glad to be back
to my own gender. Though, I had to admit I looked far more attractive
as a woman than I had imagined. Now that I knew the trick of it, I
would never again need to turn into a woman! Well, not unless there
was a really drastic situation.

I
did my best to ignore the rather condescending flavor text of the
ability, not at all surprised by its low rank. Taking a moment, I
inspected my inner grove for a moment, I found that the single blade
of grass had already grown into a small patch, while the herbs I had
planted were starting to settle in and absorb the nutrients in the
soil. I couldn’t wait to harvest some blood weed and fireflower
to see what the extra strength from the herbs would do for health
potions.

With
my work here done, I lowered the small earth barricade I had erected
around myself and stood up, returning the bears to my inventory
before making my way back to town. Hopefully, I could get what I
needed now to get Technomancy, so that I could get started on that.
On the way, I made sure to cultivate Plant Affinity, as it was
currently the lowest affinity I had that affected my grove.

Once
I arrived closer to town, I dispelled the Aspect of the Armored
Beast, though I felt like I hadn’t quite done it right. Part of
my skin felt itchy, so I inspected my aura and did my best to correct
any irregularities. Once I had done so, the itchy feeling faded away,
and much happiness was had. I was about to head back into town when I
looked down to Celeste. “Celeste…?”

“
Yes,
Falenel?” She instantly appeared above my wrist, in a more
casual hologram outfit than before, wearing a simple robe.

“
You
record everything I see… right?” I asked her curiously,
and she nodded her head quickly. “So… when I look at
something with Aura Sight..?”

“
That’s
correct, I have the visual representations for the auras stored in my
memory. However, my hologram quality is not sufficient to properly
display them in full color. I also recorded the sensations felt
through your mana while you were studying various auras, however I
lack the hardware necessary to reproduce such sensations.” She
answered with a slight smile, and I nodded my head. Figures, would
have been way too easy if I could have just studied the auras she
recorded. Was worth a shot.

“
Thanks,
anyways, Celeste. Maybe eventually I’ll be able to get you some
nice upgrades. We shall not always be poor folk!” I let out my
inner eight year old a bit as I said that dramatically, earning a
small giggle from my holographic companion.

“
That’s
fine. However, may I ask a question?” This caught me a bit off
guard, because until now she had always simply responded when called.
Seeing me nodding my head, she continued. “I am quite
interested in the place you go when you… as you say it, log
out? I can’t actually follow your mana flow when this happens,
as it appears to go to a very remote location.”

This
caused me to blink a bit, surprised. She was actually able to sense
that my mana went somewhere else when I logged out? Of course, it
would be useless to ask her where, since she already said she
couldn’t follow it. “I guess you could call it my home
world?” I said, trying to say what I could to answer. I mean,
in most settings there is something bad that happens if you tell an
NPC that their world is a video game. And honestly, I am not quite
sure if this is?

On
the one hand, it’s a video game. On the other hand, I am now
actually a half-elf capable of using magic, and that is totally not
something possible with current technology. I mean sure, they could
have used nanites or something to supply a gene therapy while I was
playing the game to change my physical characteristics to match the
game. One company did that in the past, but was sued so fast the game
died in a week. Also, even if that was the case, it would not explain
my ability to use magic.

So
far, there were two leading theories in my head. One,
extra-dimensional entities invaded the world and are using the game
as a means to open up a portal to invade. Definitely not a fun
theory, but the most plausible of the two. The other one, is aliens.
I mean, this is beyond human technology, but who’s to say that
there isn’t an alien race somewhere out there capable of
manipulating energy in a way we perceive as magic, and planted the
game on our world?

No
idea what possible reason aliens would have for doing it, so my bet
was on the first theory. Of course, given my track record with ideas
lately, it’s more likely that neither of those are right.
Anyways, once I was in town, I went ahead and stopped by Harlan’s
shop to sell off the two bears. Apparently bears are not nearly as
good for trading as a Great Boa, since you can’t make anything
special from their bodies, so I only got three silver from each.

That
was still enough to bring my total earnings up to twelve silver, and
I made my way to the mage spire. Once inside, I looked around for a
familiar face, before finding Rita. Smiling I went over and greeted
her. Somewhat surprised, she looked over to me. “Falenel, been
a while since you came to town. Was starting to think Jarl had
already sent you to the capital. So, what are you coming by for
today?” She asked with a slight smile, wearing the same robes
as usual.

“
I
actually wanted to learn another field of magic. A friend of mine
said that could be done here, but a fee of ten silvers was required?”

She
thought for a moment before nodding. “That’s right. So,
what kind of magic are you interested in? Summoning would fit you
quite nicely as a druid, or you could even go with Gravity Magic, or
Barriers to keep you safe.” I shook my head, having already
decided what I wanted. When I told her, she made a bit of a strange
face. “Technomancy? Well, sure, I can understand how it would
be helpful to any caster in this day and age. Most get cybernetic
implants to handle the issue of memory, though. Alright, then, I can
take you to the Tech-Mage instructor. Though, you won’t have
very many chances to practice until you get to the capital, since we
don’t have that many devices in the forests.”

I
thought about practicing on Celeste, but dismissed it rather quickly.
If I failed on an experiment, which was very likely I might end up
breaking her. And I definitely did not want that. “Thanks, I
plan to head for the capital before too long. Just need to finish up
a couple things, and make sure that I’m done with my training
from Jarl first.”

I
had already put off leaving far too long in my mind. From my friends
list, I could see that both my dad and Jacobs were already over level
twenty. My hope was that my druid abilities would allow me to close
the gap more quickly since they required so much time to practice.

With
a nod, Rita led me over to a man wearing grey robes with a
circuit-like pattern of black lines. “Malan, this is Falenel.
He came in order to learn to attune to Technomancy.”

The
man looked over to Rita and raised an eyebrow, before turning to look
at me. “Did he pay the fee?” With a nod, I pulled ten
silver coins from my inventory and handed them over. “Very
well. I’ll attune to Technomancy for one minute and let you get
a feeling for the magic. How you take it from there is up to you.”

I
nodded again in response, and used my Aura Sight to watch for what he
was doing. Like when I studied Celeste’s aura, what he emitted
in the air in front of himself was a criss crossing mass of sharp
turns and abstract geometric shapes. I cast a bit of my own mana into
it to get a better feel for the magic, when a skill popped up that
momentarily distracted me.

Okay,
will admit that it made me feel like an idiot for not having done
this sooner. Would have been so much easier to study the fire
element. Thankfully, I got back to my senses before the minute
passed, and was able to get a feeling for Technomancy. Focusing on my
own aura, I took a bit of time to attempt to manifest what I had
observed. What I was used to doing with magic so far was wind and
nature, soft shapes and patterns. This felt completely different,

After
standing there for a few minutes, and earning a curious look from
Rita, I managed to replicate the basic feeling of Technomancy. Though
I still wasn’t sure if it was entirely right, the instructor
seemed satisfied enough, as was the system when it awarded me the
skill.

I
was somewhat satisfied now. I doubted I would ever encounter a
situation where I was in an environment completely devoid of both
technology and nature. I’d always have one of the other to use,
and even if I didn’t for some reason, I had my shapeshifting.
Though, I was slightly surprised that it started out at Beginner
Level 3 instead of 1. That was likely because I had done a decent job
copying the aura.