Message from Admin-51340

You seem to be doing relatively well. Well other than your close call a few minutes ago, that is.

“Uhh, what?” I asked staring at the screen in bewilderment as it changed to show me a new message.

Message from Admin-51340

Our apologies, we recently regained enough power to start to monitor and communicate with those of you who are still alive and decided to check in on you. You seem to be taking things slower than many of your fellows which is a good idea considering how many have already died to the local wildlife and how your Soul Aspect works.

Okay things were starting to make more sense now, although I really didn’t like what the Admin seemed to be suggesting about the other people that it had recruited to help the Yajash.

“May I ask how many of the other people that you sent here have died?” In all honesty I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know the answer to this question, but I couldn’t help but feel that I owed them this at the very least, if only so that they had someone who would remember them.

Message from Admin-51340

A little over one third of the people we asked to come here have already perished. This is of course unfortunate but well within expected margins. Some of them simply couldn’t handle the reality of their situation when they found out that they had in fact been transported to a different world with no way of returning and others died when they decided to try attacking the local wildlife without preparing properly or by eating something that was poisonous among other things.

I cringed as I read this new message. I couldn’t blame those who had been unable to handle the situation that they had found themselves in because I had struggled with that myself. On the other hand, not to speak ill of the dead or anything, the other two reasons seemed a bit ridiculous to me, it always pays to get an idea of what you’re dealing with before rushing into something, that’s why almost every game out there had tutorials (with a few exceptions that may or may not have led to a large number of broken controllers) and eating something that you didn’t know anything about when you had food that you knew for a fact wasn’t poisonous really was stupid.

“Well crap,” I said out loud. “How does that affect the plan for when the Yajash arrive?”

Message from Admin-51340

An excellent question but one that is quite difficult to answer this early on as we simply don’t know how many of you will survive for the remaining months. What we can tell you is that the better prepared you are in both your ability to provide for larger groups and your knowledge of the surrounding area will affect how many Yajash will choose to migrate to your area.

That made a lot of sense, in fact it was the reason that we had been sent here in the first place, but it was good to see confirmation that we probably wouldn’t have to deal with more people than we could deal with if we survived until the Yajash were ready to arrive. In fact, I was willing to bet that the Admin would now be checking up on us to see how we were doing.

“Just wanted to ask if you had any advice on what to do next?” I asked, I had a pretty good idea of what the reply would be, but it was always good to check with someone who understood the System better than you did when it came to things like this.

Message from Admin-51340

You’re actually doing the right thing as far as you’re concerned, keep working on your Skills and completing Aspects, your big advantage right now is that you’re in a protected area and the more your Growth Rate increases while you’re still at Level 1 the faster your Stats will grow in later Levels. Feel free to keep testing yourself against the local wildlife but remember that your primary objective is to survive, and the nature of your Soul Aspect means that you start slow but as it increases in level the bonus Stats and Skills it provides will get better and better and you will be able to exert greater control over its development. At the moment you have quite high survivability for someone still at Level 1 which is good for what you’re trying to do right now but your Soul Aspect should be able to change into whatever suits you best later on as new forms of life evolve in your inner world.

I nodded as I read this final screen which faded out of existence once I had finished reading it, this was pretty much what I had expected and it was good to know that taking a slightly more cautious approach was the right move for me to make, at least for now. It was also interesting to note that apparently, I could in fact affect the inner world of my Soul Aspect to change how it was developing, this was very interesting to me especially as I hadn’t really seen any signs of this ability from the notifications that I had read so far and it suggested that the Admin knew more about my Soul Aspect than it was telling me. At the moment I was uncertain as to what form this ability to change the development of my Soul Aspect would take but I was sure looking forward to finding out.

Anyway, it was time to get back to my new training schedule, first things first; I had to think about the sort of spells I wanted to create, the first one to create would obviously be a defensive spell. If I had a spell that I could use to fend off the leaping attack that the thing had used against me then it would’ve been much easier to kill. Some sort of spell to slow down enemies would’ve also made it easier to escape its friends when they had attempted to ambush me. Yes, I had managed to get away from them, but it had been very close. If the big one had managed to grab me There was no way that I would be able to get away from that thing if I was struggling with its little brother and that’s without even thinking about the other ones that were following it.

Maybe a spell that made it more difficult to damage outside of a full-on method of blocking attacks would be a good idea as well something like a Stone Skin spell from a game might be something else to look into. A new attack spell might also be a good idea seeing as the thing that I had fought had barely been affected by Mana Bolt, something that actually penetrated the target would be much more effective, luckily with Earth as my highest Affinity making both of these spells should be easy enough, though I’d probably start with the Stone Skin spell.

I might not be able to use these spells too often until I reach Level 2 due to MP limitations, but they would increase the number of Aspect Points that I had which would allow me to complete Aspects which would in turn increase my Stats which was what the Admin had advised. Speaking of Stats, I had a couple of Unassigned Stat Points that I should use.

Bringing up my Status I added a point each to my Intelligence for the extra MP and after thinking about it for a bit into Agility thanks to my previous close call before examining the results.

Status

Level 1

Exp: 9%

HP: 88/88

MP: 94/94

HP Regen: 8.1 per minute

MP Regen: 5.1 per minute

SP: 64/64

Essence: 0

SP Regen: 5.9 per minute

Str: 5 (+1/Lvl)

Agi: 7 (+3/Lvl)

Con: 12 (+ 4/Lvl)

End: 8 (+5/Lvl)

Tou: 9 (+2/Lvl)

Int: 12 (+9/Lvl)

Coor: 9 (+5/Lvl)

Vit: 14 (+4/Lvl)

Wis: 7 (+3/Lvl)

Will: 16 (+9/Lvl)

Per: 10 (+10/Lvl)

Cha: 8 (+5/Lvl)

Additional Growth Rate: +6 Unassigned Stat Points/Lvl.

Unassigned Stat Points: 0

Nodding as I noted that I had received 9% of the experience I needed to Level Up from the thing that I had killed earlier, that meant I had to kill around 10 more before I would reach Level 2 which meant that I really had to get stronger because it would take far too long to reach Level 2 if I kept killing them at this rate. Which was just another reason to train and get stronger as far as I was concerned.

Speaking of which it was time to get down to business, after considering how to create some sort of Mana shield that I could use to block attacks for a few seconds, I came to the conclusion that to do this I first had to understand how Mana Bolt actually worked.

Beginning to cast my spell I concentrated on how it actually formed, feeling the Mana flowing down my arm and forming the unstable ball of energy at the tips of my fingers, concentrating I first tried to control the energy making it into something more benign that wouldn’t explode on contact with something that it touched.

After a while I eventually managed to change the concentrated Energy of the Mana Bolt into a small orb of magical energy that floated above my hand shedding a gentle light as I looked at the glowing orb I noticed that the symbol that told me that I had unlocked a new Skill was blinking in the corner of my vision and I quickly brought up the information on my new spell with a grin.

Magelight Unlocked!

This skill creates a small orb of light. Cost: 5 MP/min

Increases Growth Rate by 1 Wisdom.

1 Aspect Point Awarded for unlocking Magelight.

While this spell had next to no usefulness in battle it did at least partly prove my theory about how to create new spells. The only thing that really surprised me about this spell was that it increased my Wisdom instead of my Intelligence, this was probably because it was a channelled spell that lasted as long as I was providing it with Mana but until I unlocked more another channelled spell this would only remain a theory.

However now that I had a working theory of how to create new spells, I could move onto one the ones I actually wanted to create, concentrating once more on the glowing orb of energy hovering above my hand I attempted to flatten it out. I was already feeling a slight headache coming on from brute forcing the Mana this way, but it did seem to be working.

By the time that I had managed to make something resembling a dinner plate made of glowing blue energy I had a full-on migraine and no sign of receiving the Skill that I wanted so I stopped trying to create this new spell and instead sat down to meditate so that I could recover MP.

As I did so I specifically reached out to the earth affinity Mana that surrounded me and started drawing as much in as I possibly could. I had a lot of plans for spells that required my Earth Affinity to be as high as possible, Water Affinity would also be helpful with making control spells but for now I was going to focus on my Earth Affinity.

As soon as I was sure that my MP had regenerated, I once again tried to create the defensive spell that I wanted. Soon enough, I managed to get it to the point that I had gotten it last time, but it still didn’t want to become a spell, something was missing. Deciding to try the first thing that I could think of I forced more Mana into the glowing plate of energy and attempted to compress it down to try and make it stronger.

By the time the plate of energy was about half an inch thick it started slowly spinning as I started to lose control of the magic, clamping down on it with my Willpower and Mana Manipulation as hard as I could, I knew that if I managed to control this it was likely that I would probably get the spell that I wanted.

A bit later I released the magic and fell to my knees gasping as sweat ran down my brow. I had finally managed to control the spell and I now had not one, not two, but three glowing symbols in the corner of my vision letting me know that I had managed to do what I had wanted to do.

“Holy crap,” I gasped as I reached up to wipe the sweat off my forehead. “Who would’ve guessed that something like that was so bloody strenuous.”

But as I started to open the new Skill notifications, I knew that it had been worthwhile.

Mana Shield Lvl 1

Creates a small shield of Mana that can block weak attacks. Cost 20 MP.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Intelligence.

1 Aspect Point awarded for unlocking Mana Shield.

Spellcrafting (Specialised) Lvl 1

This Skill increases your ability to create new spells without losing control of the Mana.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Intelligence and Willpower.

2 Aspect Point awarded for unlocking Spellcrafting.

Not only had I unlocked the spell that I had wanted to unlock but I had gained another Skill that would allow me to unlock other spells more easily which could only be an advantage no matter how I looked at it. Mana Shield was quite an expensive spell and it probably wouldn’t hold up too much at the moment, but it would be useful, nonetheless.

The next notification was also very interesting and confirmed one of the theories that I had about how Skills and my Growth Rate worked.

Skills increased!

Mana manipulation increased to Lvl 5

Growth Rate Bonus increased by 1 Intelligence

Available Aspect points increased by 1

The incentive to Level Up keeps growing, I was still going to keep training and preparing myself for when I actually had no choice but to fight to survive when the barrier protecting the clearing that I was in faded away but there was no denying that Levelling Up would give me a lot more Stats to work with which would allow me to train harder for longer.

And finally, I decided to check my Affinities as a whole instead of just checking the increase notification which was the source of the final glowing symbol.

Affinities

Fire

0%

Water

2%

Earth

10%

Air

4%

Nature (Locked)

5%

Time (Locked)

2%

Hmm, I should probably work on my Water Affinity as well, Air Affinity did give me a couple of interesting ideas for new spells, but I wasn’t sure how useful they would be right now. I also wasn’t sure how far 10% Earth Affinity would take me in terms of the spells I wanted to create but I was pretty sure that I could create the more basic one which was the projectile spell, at least once I had regenerated my Mana.

After I had finished meditating, I once again started by creating a Mana Bolt, memorising the sensation, this would be the base for my new spell. Once I was certain I had it down I released the magic and reached within finding my Earth Affinity Mana and tried to simply create a Mana Bolt with it.

Unfortunately this didn’t seem to be working, and after considering the reason I decided to try a different tack instead of using my Earth Mana to try and form the projectile itself I instead used it to reach out to the other Earth Mana that surrounded me and tried to draw it in that way. To my surprise this actually seemed to work, and some rocks shot out of the ground and formed a small spike about the length of my hand with a grin I launched it at a nearby tree and watched as it drilled into the wood instead of exploding on contact.

Perfection

With a grin I brought up my new notification and read it.

Stone Shot Lvl 1

Creates a small projectile made of stone that deals a small amount of damage to a target. Cost 20 MP.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Intelligence.

1 Aspect Point awarded for unlocking Stone Shot.

Stone Shot was exactly what I was looking for, it predictably cost a bit more MP than Mana Bolt but it’s ability to penetrate the target because it was a solid mass would make it harder to shrug off and a quick look at the tree that I had hit earlier told me that the projectile stayed in whatever it hit which meant it would continue to damage anything it hit as it moved around.

Seeing as I now had more than 5 Aspect Points available which would allow me to reach 15/25 Points into Aspect of the Mage, I decided that not using them any longer would be foolish because Aspect of the Mage increased the Stats that let me use more magic.

Bringing up my Aspects Screen I placed five of the six points I had into Aspect of the Mage and confirmed my decision.

Once again, I found myself viewing my inner world, this time I seemed to be examining rocks of all things, but a closer look told me that these rocks were actually formed by colonies of different types of bacteria depositing layers of sediment over time which eventually formed these structures. After I noticed this time seemed to fast forward and to my surprise the next thing that appeared in front of me was on land. It was a simple single-celled thing, but it was different from any other organism I had seen so far, other than the fact that it was on land I wasn’t quite sure what made it so different, but it was nonetheless both interesting and exciting to see.

Blinking as my perspective returned to my body, I excitedly read the new notifications that were waiting for me.

Aspect of the Mage has reached 15/25 providing you with the following benefits.

Having a large amount of Mana at one’s disposal is of no use to anyone when it is used up.

MP regen increased by 1 per min!

Aspect points: 1

Soul Aspect increased to Level 40!

A new form of life that has a strange hard substance in its cell membrane has appeared in your inner world, this lifeform has evolved to survive in a place that no other organism can survive and represents a new opportunity, how this new species evolves will be very important going forward.

Toughness increased by 2!

Constitution increased by 2!

Air Affinity increased by 2%

Wow, my Soul Aspect coming in with a very interesting combination of bonuses, increased health and increases to my Affinities? Now that was useful, especially considering the spells that I was making. I wasn’t going to say no to the extra MP regen either, although it was a little disappointing that I didn’t get any new Skills this time round.

Still I now had more MP regen which would allow me to practice longer before I had to take a break and make that break shorter, it was starting to get dark now but that wouldn’t stop me from making one final spell. Once again, I reached down into the ground and drew the Earth mana that I found there up and encased my body in it.

“Holy shit!” I shouted as the energy scorched my skin, quickly I shoved the Earth Mana away from my body and fell to the ground gasping in pain. I didn’t know what I had done wrong but the results of making that mistake were fairly serious as a quick check of my Status told me that I had lost a whole 20 HP in that second the Mana had been burning my body. After thinking about it for a while I started to make a hypothesis that the reason the Earth Mana had burned me was because it hadn’t really been ‘my’ Mana. So, this time I first formed a skin of my own Mana around my body before coating it in Earth Mana.

I watched cautiously as earth rose up and covered my body, thankfully the burning sensation from earlier wasn’t present but as this process continued, I discovered another flaw in the way I was doing things. I mean, I’m sure that I’d be a lot harder to hurt if I was completely covered in earth and stone, but it would be rather difficult to breathe. However, this was an interesting idea to immobilise enemies.

Sitting down to meditate again I decided to use my Inner Vision Skill to take a closer look at how the bacteria that I had seen when I had increased my Soul Aspect a few minutes ago. After all they were doing something fairly similar to what I was trying to achieve, I mean they couldn’t move the shell that they made around but I thought it was still a worthwhile idea.

When I was sure that my MP had regenerated, I opened my eyes I coated myself in Mana again and reached once more into the earth drawing out a tiny amount of the Mana that I found there and adding a small layer to the skin that I had just made. Once I had done this, I drew more Mana out of the Earth and started to thicken it up in the places that needed the most protection like my chest while keeping my joints free. This would provide less overall protection if it worked but allow me to keep most of my mobility. In the end it almost looked like a poorly made suit of armour with the bits between the rock plates that I had made simply having a layer of dirt connecting them. The draw on my Mana was pretty massive and I ran out of MP a few seconds after making it causing it to disintegrate and fall to the ground once more as I felt a splitting headache begin to form from the overuse of my Mana but I still had a massive grin on my face as I saw the symbol in the corner of my vision that told me that I had successfully created a new Skill and I brought up the information on it.

Earthen Armour (Specialised) Lvl 1

Creates a basic suit of armour out of stone and earth that increases your ability to take damage. Cost 100 MP per minute.

Growth Rate increased by 1 Intelligence and Wisdom.

2 Aspect Points awarded for unlocking Earthen Armour.

Holy crap, this was a bit more powerful than I had intended on making, not that I was complaining exactly but it did cost a lot of MP to use. In fact, I could barely even use it for a whole minute with the recent increases to my MP and regen. Just then I felt something warm trickle down from my nose and raised a hand to catch what turned out to be blood, it would seem that the warning about trying to unlock spells I wasn’t ready for yet was true and I resolved to be a bit more careful the next time that I was experimenting.

However, I had successfully made all the spells that I had wanted to today, so I decided to call it a night and went to wash the dirt and grime off my body and the blood from my face before going to bed. Tomorrow was a new day and I was only just beginning to learn about this new world that I had found myself in.