Jude woke up in a small patch of grass in the middle of a random forest. For the first time in a long time, his mind felt free! He hadn’t realized how suppressed his mental capacity had been when he was on the Digital Plane. Now he was free! And in more way than one.

He had long forgotten the feeling of, well, feeling! The grass beneath him, the smell in the air, the air in his lungs! He hadn’t known how dead he had felt before. Before he had felt neither cold nor hot, but now he could feel the warmth of the sun on his skin.

After feeling the joys, he felt the less than joys. The course cloth he was wearing, the small stones in his back and a sudden cold wind, the sign of the seasons changing. This all brought Jude back to reality.

Sitting up, Jude assessed the situation. He wore a course cloth light green almost white short robe and some baggie brown peasant like pants. He had a rope for a belt and roughshod leather boots. Looking towards the tree’s near him, he noticed that the leaves were changing. He would need warm clothes soon.

He stood up in the waist high grass and found that he stood in quite the picturesque scene. Old wood surrounded him, their leaves while changing still blocked out most of the light. The patch of grass he stood in was free of the lumbering growths, creating a beam of light shining in the darkness.

Jude felt safe for the moment. He was well hidden in the tall dead grass. Since he arrived by creating a character, he figured it was safe to assume that this reality had some sort of game aspects to it. And if that was so, he should have a Character Screen or Status—Oh there it is.

Name Jude Gender: Male Age: 15 Race/Echelon Human/Freeman 1 Primary Class Wizard 1 Other Classes 0 Stats HP MP Str Spi Agi Char 17 22 10 11 10 10 Job Skills Special Skills General Skills Spectral Magic I Common V (Lang) Equipment Other Stats Clothes (Starter Set) HP Rgen .01 HP/M Basic Shortsword MP Rgen .37 MP/M Stats Description HP Health Points This represents how much health you have. MP Mana Points MP is the amount of magical power a creature has to use magic and skills. Str Strength Strength is the representation of not only one's physical power but also the life force that resides inside the person. Spi Spirit Spirit is the combination of one's innate magical power, knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom. The higher the Spirit, the better at magic one will be. Agi Agility Agility is the combination of all things dexterous. Whether it is making something with fine detail, to avoiding danger. It all depends on your Agility. Char Charisma Charisma can affect many different aspects of life. From rulership to commanding others, to drawing attention to one's self and to draw it away. Of course, Charisma also affects things like bartering. In the end, it can determine how much someone likes you.

That’s interesting, Jude thought, if there is a status screen, then I wonder if there is an Options screen? Ah good!

After perusing the Options menu, Jude turned on what he thought would be helpful. Like Name Plates, Threat, Health Bars, Object Names, HUD, etc.

Jude looked around, not much had changed. Now he had a visual of his Health and Mana in the corner of his vision, or perhaps mind, it was hard to explain with words.

Next was the fun part. Jude had always wanted to be able to do Magic and now he was an honest to goodness Wizard! But he was unsure of how to actually do magic. So he opened up his Status screen again and read the description for Spectral Magic:

Spectral Magic

Rank I

A magic of pure ether and mana. Using nothing but the power of your mana you can create objects and manipulate them to your will. Spectral Magic is considered one of the weakest magics, but the most versatile. Rank 1.

Spectral Weapons Unlocked.

Spectral Weapons:

Using a weapon as a focus, create ether images of that weapon to fight for you.

Jude was still not sure how to activate the skill. Was he supposed to chant something, or maybe he had to say the name out loud? But wait, he didn’t have his weapon equipped. During character creation, he had selected a staff and a sword. But it wasn’t anywhere near him.

Inventory?

It worked! Just like a game, Jude had opened his inventory. He had a 20 stack of food and water, which was a relief that he hadn’t thought of yet. He also found the staff, sword, some health potions, and bandages. He had taken the staff because wizards usually use something like that. The sword was just too cool to pass up. He had always wanted one! But taking both weapons meant that the staff was not much more than a walking stick. The sword was a little better but still pretty basic.

He took the sword out and immediately felt its weight in his hands.

Jude had never held a sword before, but in an unknown world filled with dangers, it was a weight of comfort.

Now that he had his sword, he focused on it and said, “Spectral Weapons!”

And nothing happened.

At least not in the physical world. Jude felt something in the back of his head similar to the Modicuit that he had used back on the Digital Plane. This time he focused on the Modicuit while he said the words.

“Spectral Weapons.”

There it was! There was a flash of circuitry inside of his Modicuit. Back in the Digital Plane, the Modicuit had been very limited. Now it seemed to have expanded some to include this new skill.

But nothing had happened outside of the Modicuit. Jude continued to experiment. Next, he added hand movements. This seemed to map out more of the Spectral Weapons circuit. It didn’t take long for the movements to somehow become familiar to him. It was akin to using a mouse and keyboard on a computer, the movements came without thinking.

Jude still hadn’t succeeded yet, but then he remembered that he had to use the weapon as a focus. That’s when he realized that he had to connect the skill circuits to the sword! Jude wasn’t consciously aware how to do this, but he felt that the right gesture would accomplish the task along with a little mental fortitude. If he could stretch out the output circuit down his arm to the weapon.

“Spectral Weapons!”

POP!

A loud sound banged in his head, leaving him with a glaring headache and a burning sensation along his arm and into his hand. However, there floating in front of him was a dazzling replica of his sword. The only difference was that it was tinted a color that changed from violet to blue.

“This doesn’t seem to be too ethereal to me,” Jude commented to himself.

He clanged the floating sword and real sword together and found the Spectral Sword to be quite real. This felt a little off from the description and Jude wondered if it had something to do with connecting the Spectral Weapons circuit to the sword itself.

He played with the Spectral Sword a bit, having it move around like a remote control flying sword. It didn’t last long as the skill ended and the sword disappeared. That was when Jude found that he had no mana left! He hadn’t used much mana mapping out the Spectral Weapons circuit, but manifesting the sword for a short period of time depleted all his mana.

Jude sat still waiting for his mana to return. He took this time to examine the Spectral Weapons’ circuitry. From his observations, he knew there should be several ways to use the circuitry. Using different paths and how he entered mana into the circuitry would have different effects. He quickly came the conclusion that the mana cost he had just experienced was not due to the skill, but rather his unconventional way of connecting to the sword.

He had created a new circuit.

One that wasn’t there before.

That was when Jude noticed something new and mentally clicked on it.

Title Gained: Skill Sage

One who is able to transcend the normal to achieve the improbable. To rank up a skill in an extraordinary way.

5 Spi

Well, that was cool, Did I just get smarter? At least it confirms my suspicion. Now I just need to find out how much mana it will cost me to use the skill normally. Then I can refine it down to make it more efficient.

***

Jude couldn’t wait for his mana to fully regenerate before he started playing, err analyzing, his new Spectral Weapons skill. He found out that with his current understanding the skill cost 4 MP, which meant he could cast it 6 times when at full MP.

This didn’t seem very efficient to Jude as it was his first and only skill that he had to rely on. In most games, your very first skill was one that was practically free, albeit weak. Since he could see the inner workings of the skill with the Modicuit, it didn’t take long for him to make the skill more efficient.

He found that duration played a big factor in the mana consumption, so he focused the skill so that it only activated during the swing. This limited the range as the sword always manifested right in front of Jude. However, it did bring the mana cost down to 1mp. Success.

During his testing, he also found a looping effect that allowed him to duplicate the sword up to 8 times. As long as he didn’t use a routine that keeps the swords out for more than an instant the mana usage remained at 1 mp, otherwise keeping it out for an extended period of time multiplied the mana drain.

By this point it was mid-day and a good half of the grass had been mowed down. Jude decided to take a break, eat lunch and recoup some mana. He headed into what was left of the tall grass when his foot hit a hard stone and made him stumble, falling to the ground.

“What the heck is this?” He asked as he picked up the strange stone.

Jude was quickly greeted with new information as soon as he picked it up.

[Stone of Stumbling] Quest Item

Quest: Find the Origins of [Stone of Stumbling]

Do you accept? [y/n]

Yes!

Jude, of course, accepted his first quest! Then he looked at the stone.

After closer examination and a little cleaning, he found the [Stone of Stumbling] to be a broken part of a stone tablet. The words on it, however, were unreadable by him. It was a language that he did not understand.

After eating he picked up the stone again and examined it while he waited for his mana to recover. The side with the text was very smooth and the characters beautiful. Whatever language it was; it was at least pleasant to look at. The other sides seemed to be uncut nor crafted, yet they retained an elegant nature about them that was hard to describe. The only sad part was the broken edge. All he had was the corner of what must have been an exquisite piece of work.

By meditating on a holy object you’ve gained a new skill!

Special Skill Gained: Meditation

Rank I

Gather mana quicker by sitting down and meditating. 10% Mana regeneration while active.

Jude sat quietly and activated the skill. He looked to the Modicuit to see what happened and noticed a new circuit that looked like a spring with capacitors at one end. Once the skill was active, it started working on its own, and Jude didn’t see any way to interact with it, so he left it alone.

Having his mana restored, Jude made off in a random direction as he had no clue which way to go.

Inside the forest, he found level 1 or 2 small wolves. He knew this because they had “small wolf” written over their head and were considered of equal power. Each one was viewed neutral and just like a game, it would stay that way unless he did something to anger them. Like attacking them.

Jude wasn’t sure if they would ‘link’ like in a game if they saw him attacking another one, so he waited and found one alone. This was like a game, so to level, he needed experience and to get experience, he had to hunt things. At least it wasn’t a bunny. He had found some, but they were classified as ‘critter’ and he was pretty sure they wouldn’t give him any EXP.

He hadn’t used Spectral Weapons before on an actual opponent, so he readied his sword in case it came down to melee. The modified Spectral Weapons was pretty close range so he was only guaranteed the first hit with it.

After steadying himself he began!

“Spectral Weapons!”

The eight blades swished through the air so fast you could barely make them out before they disappeared. Jude had attacked the from behind just in case, but quickly found it unnecessary. What happened next nearly made him throw up and in fact, he had to swallow a bit of it down.

The received the attack like butter against hot knives. After the attack happened it merely stood there for a second before falling to the forest floor in many chunks. The smell of blood quickly filled the air and made Jude nearly hurl once again.

Video games had not prepared him for this. He had played gory games before, but the real thing was much different.

Worst of all, it was a complete waste. There was no way to recover the pelt or anything else that might have been useful. He didn’t know how to do these things, but he would have at least tried. But now he wasn’t sure what to do with ‘wolf chunks.’

After this, Jude decided to modify his Spectral Weapons yet again. He clearly didn’t need all 8 weapons, even if it was just as efficient as one.

As he was preparing to leave something peculiar happened. The corpse, despawned! It wasn’t anything flashy, all it seemed to do was melt into the soil without leaving a stain behind.

Did it despawn or did the forest reclaim it? At least I don’t have to worry about leaving behind a trail of dead bodies!

Feeling a little better, Jude continued on towards his next victim.

“Spectral Weapons!”

This time the weapon shot out in a piercing motion rather than a swinging one.

“YIP!” The sounded. It didn't die! It was barely hurt when it turned around and lunged at Jude!

He put the sword up defensively and somehow blocked the wolf’s charge receiving only a few scratches. The wolf was wounded and hence slowed down, this allowed Jude the advantage to do a sword strike! He stabbed his sword forward much like he had done with the spell and delivered yet another blow!

The wolf, however, had yet to give up its life and quickly followed Jude’s retracting arm. The then landed a bite on his thigh and latched on!

The wolf was now too close for Jude to make good use of a sword swing, so he quickly reversed his grip on the sword and drove it down into the wolf. The made one last moan before collapsing to the grown dead.

Jude had lost 5 hp, about a third of his hitpoints. This time he had taken his opponent too lightly, next time he would be more prepared. It was disturbing, but dicing a wolf into small chunks was much better than losing his life!

He had some bandages and health potions in his inventory as starting equipment. He was about to use a bandage but then noticed that it was primarily for bleeding effects. Oddly enough, he wasn’t really bleeding that bad after being bit by a wolf and losing a quarter of his health!

Now he continued on a little bit wiser. The next wolf he saw, “Spectral Weapons!” he said. This time 8 weapons slashed out, cutting the wolf into little chunks.

Without blinking an eye, Jude continued on to his next target.

“Spectral Weapons.”

This time all 8 swords pierced the target leaving the small wolf mostly one piece.

Jude was getting better at control.

***

Jude continued on like this as he went through the forest. Slowly experimenting with the number of blades and how they attacked. This time, however, he was much more careful and didn’t go to any extremes like he did the first time.

He gained a level which fully healed him and after a while gained yet another one, putting him at level 3.

It wasn’t until later that he noticed that he had gained something else. Killing the wolf in a melee action gave him access to another job, Warrior.