“Thanks, Annie,” I mumbled, careful to not further hurt my busted lip. Which was when I realized that they weren’t hurting nearly as much any longer as just a few moments earlier.

What the heck?

I had always loved the feel when Annie had been touching my face, but this time it had been different - I had felt a comforting warmth coming from her hands, similar to the warmth radiated by a fireplace on a cold winter night. And within seconds, my head and face had started feeling a lot better, like a bunch of Ibuprofen kicking in - suddenly, all the pain had felt muted and began fading away.

“Annie,… what, I mean… how did you do that? That felt amazing!”

Annie just stared blankly at me and didn’t respond at all. In fact, she looked almost shell-shocked.

“Hey, Annie! Are you ok?” I shouted.

Annie shook herself and then answered in a small and frightened voice: “Daniel, I have no idea what is going on.”

After a short moment to collect herself, she continued. “Honestly, I’m freaked out. Let me get you inside the house first, and then I see if I can do something about your nose. I also should check to see if other people need my help… there was some type of earthquake, I guess.”

The bed-and-breakfast didn’t show any apparent signs of earthquake damage, so we felt safe enough going back inside. Annie pushed the wheelchair into the dining area and then looked at me hesitantly. “Daniel, I don’t know what I just did out there. It felt right and exhilarating, like nothing I have ever felt before. But… I’m not sure I can do it again. And, to be honest, I’m not sure I want to do this again. It feels alien to me. Like, that is not really me, you know?”.

I smiled encouragingly at Annie and responded: “I understand, Annie. But think about what you just did! I mean, whatever it was, you just healed my injuries in what, like five seconds? Can you seriously walk away from that and not even try again?”

Annie looked at me with an uncertain expression on her face.

“Just give it a shot,” I continued. “In the worst case, nothing will happen, and we chalk it up to some weird miracle… but if not… think about the good you can do with that type of skill. Just try to remember what you did the first time and replicate that.”

Reluctantly, Annie stepped toward me and put her hands on my face. This time I tried to watch closely what she was doing.

At first, nothing unusual happened, or perhaps I just couldn’t see anything special. I focused harder, willing myself to notice even minute changes in either one of us. And abruptly, a crisp clarity flooded into my eyes, as if I had been suffering from blurry vision, and it all cleared up in an instant.

As Annie got a look of intense concentration on her face, I could suddenly see a slightly diffuse amber nimbus, like a soft orange cloud around her arms and hands. It was slowly pulsating, and with every pulse, I could feel my nose slowly straightening. Initially, the process was intensely painful, but then the pain quickly receded, and I felt better than I had in a good long while. The moment Annie took off her hands, the amber light also dissipated.

“Holy shit, Annie, you did it again!”

Annie gave me a reluctant smile. “Daniel, I don’t know… I… what is going on? What am I doi-….”

Suddenly she stopped talking and just stared at me weirdly. “Daniel? What happened to your eyes?”

“What do you mean? What is wrong with my eyes?”

“I… I’m not sure. Just a moment ago they were glowing in an almost silvery light. It is gone now, though. Perhaps I just imagined it…?”

“Sorry, Annie, I’m not sure,” I responded. “I didn’t feel anything special. Wait, did you say silver?”

Annie nodded and smiled weakly at me. “Yeah, probably I just imagined it.”

Her smile seemed a bit fragile as if she had a hard time coping with the situation. And I understood her. This was… magic. It had to be. Either that or some weird high-tech nano bullshit that resembled magic.

Obviously, something had happened to us, perhaps just Annie and me, but it was too soon to tell. The room with the CAT scan, the voice, the listing of stats, and maybe even the images and memories. And Annie had gotten some pretty fantastic ability out of it that made me instantly jealous – I wanted that kind of skill!

Just to further underline the weirdness of the situation and our new reality, a blue box suddenly popped up in my view, just like those that I had seen in the Netherworld.

You have learned the spell Mana Vision. Whereas most people can only see the effects of mana and the charge of runes, you can actually see mana itself. The ease with which you can see mana depends on the density of mana you are trying to see, its distance from you, and your level in mana vision. Mana Vision Level 1

After I had read the message, it slowly started fading from view. Could I do that manually as well? What if I was in an emergency and suddenly a box popped up in my vision… could I get rid of it? Perhaps it was as simple as commanding it to go, either verbally or mentally. And how about seeing the message? Could I take another look, or was one peek all I got?

‘Message,’ I mentally commanded.

But nothing happened.

So how about being more specific?

‘Mana vision,’ I mentally requested, imagining a blue box, just as what I had seen a few moments earlier. And, lo and behold, the blue box popped up in my vision, this time containing only a description of the spell.

Well, that was useful, even if odd. It was almost as if we were in a big computer in which we could call up files. Or perhaps, not a big computer, but some type of virtual reality. Or a weird-ass fantasy world in which stuff like that happened, just like in the litrpg books I had read.

Turning back to Annie, I noticed that she was a bit shaky. More so than I had ever seen her before. She apparently took all the weirdness a lot harder than I did. Which came as no surprise. After all, I had vicariously, and imaginary experienced living in a fantasy world with fantastic skills and magic for many years of my life. During my time as a quadriplegic, reading fantasy books was one of my few outs that I could do mostly independently, thanks to voice-activated e-readers that enabled me to flip pages by myself.

Not knowing what else to do, I tried distracting her. “Annie, I could see the energy moving down your arms into me. That was amazing!”

Annie looked at me, startled. “You could see that? I couldn’t see anything. I just felt the warmth go down my arms toward you! What exactly did you see?”

I started describing what I had observed, but Annie interrupted me excitedly when I mentioned the amber color. “This is what the voice mentioned! It said that I had received an amber core and that it would provide me with an affinity for healing! Did something like that happen to you as well? What color do you have? What does it do?”

“Well, my experience was a bit different,” I said and explained to her what had happened to me. Seeing how amazing Annie’s ability was, I felt a bit bummed that I had not taken the amber core.

Then a thought struck my mind.

“Annie, do you think you can heal me with your ability?”

Annie looked at me, quizzically. “That is what I just did!”

“No, I mean, like completely heal me. Make me able to walk again!” I clarified.

“Oh my god, I didn’t even think about that” Annie shouted enthusiastically. “That would be the best thing ever!”

She immediately put her hands on my neck, and I could see from the corner of my eyes the amber color rushing down her arm and into my body. Warmth suffused my neck and head, giving me the feeling of an endorphin high. Sadly, it was entirely localized and didn’t extend to the lower part of my body, despite wisps of amber mana visibly dancing over the skin of my chest, arms, and legs.

I felt deflated. For a moment, I had had my hopes up high, after seeing the incredible power of this skill, but I guess I shouldn’t have. Nerve damage was probably a lot more complicated than minor bruises and cuts and even a broken nose.

If things indeed followed some kind of gaming convention, then Annie’s skill for healing was probably at a rather basic level. But the fact that this magical healing was possible in the first place gave me hope for the future.

“Don’t sweat it, Annie. Perhaps you will be able to help me at some point, once you have fully mastered your new abilities. Do you have a spell level?”

“How did you know? I had this weird blue box pop up and tell me that I had level 1 in Lay Hands. I have no idea what that means. Gosh, this is all so bizarre.”

Annie started to laugh hysterically, and I was worried that she would have some kind of nervous breakdown. Which wouldn’t be surprising. I guess, given the circumstances, one would consider that even a relatively normal reaction. I mean, most people believe that ‘magic’ is only done by charlatans. To suddenly be able to do it yourself should be a profound shock to the weltanschauung of most people. And some people don’t react well to such shocks. At least Annie didn’t bang her head on the floor or ran away screaming.

Eventually, Annie calmed down. So what if she had some weird spells and abilities, and blue boxes popping up in her vision – make the best of it and move on, was her credo. Pragmatic and awesome… that was Annie!

While Annie went out to see if she could help some other people, I decided to find out whether I had managed to get the silver core in time, and if so, what its impact was. I really didn’t know what to expect, given the rather general term ‘synergy’ that was provided to me by that weird talking head.

So the question was how to go about figuring out what I could do. Presumably, I couldn’t cast any healing magic, but just to make sure, I tried copying what Annie had done. I focused on my hands and arms and willed them to glow with the amber, diffuse light that I had seen on Annie. Alas, nothing happened.

Maybe it was a matter of intent? Or need? After all, Annie had been concerned about my well-being, so perhaps that was instrumental for how this worked. Several minutes later, I had to give up, somewhat frustrated despite not having expected any success in the first place.

So the questions remained… what could I do? Or had I messed up and ended up without any abilities at all? Just the thought made me wince.

“I wished there was a goddamn wiki or a character sheet,” I mumbled despondently, only to barely suppress a startled shout when immediately a blue table popped into my brain.

Name

Daniel Hollander

Rank

Unranked

Title:

Mental Bastion

Strength:

0

Intuitive Reasoning:

14

Mana

Agility:

0

Complex Reasoning:

17

Silver

10/10

Speed:

0

Knowledge:

14

Dexterity:

0

Perception:

13

Endurance:

1

Spatial Awareness:

21

Vitality:

5

Willpower:

20

Available characteristic points: 0

Spells

Mana Vision

Level 1

Available spell points: 0

Skills

Mental Ward

Level 1

Mental Fortitude

Level 1

Multitasking

Level 1

Available skill points: 0

What. The. Fuck.

Seriously?

Some weird, talking face, fine. Magic-like abilities… a stretch, but maybe some fancy science or perhaps indeed magic, whatever. But a freaking character sheet? With a numerical value for mana? At least there were no hit points because that would have been even weirder. But then again, I guessed vitality was a type of proxy for that.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm down. So much for being able to accept this weird new reality more easily than Annie. I had to chuckle about myself a bit.

So what else did I learn from that character sheet?

I only had a single, doggone spell!

Great!

So, to summarize… presumably, some people, perhaps everyone, had magic. And they could do some cool stuff – at least Annie could. Apparently, I had mana… but my only spell allowed me to see mana! How was I supposed to do anything with that? Perhaps no biggie for someone that could do physical stuff, but for me, magic was like the only chance to actually do something amazing with my life.

Maybe an impressive list of skills might have consoled me, but I had like a grand-total off three skills, and one spell and they were a bit lackluster if I was honest. What was the point of being able to see mana? Enjoy the show? Play the peeping tom of watching magic currents?

Probably I had cast the spell instinctively when Annie had been healing me, and that had caused my eyes to start shining with a silvery light. So at least that explained that mystery. And, admittedly, silver shining eyes were probably kind of badass looking, but this couldn’t be it, right?

There had to be a reason why silver mana was prohibited, but so far, I failed to see that reason. In fact, it felt as if I had missed a major opportunity. Not only did I potentially upset a powerful entity by taking a core that was restricted, but also did I not seem to have gained anything valuable out of it.