Author’s Corner: As promised, here is an extra chapter to celebrate the first 100 followers! As an added bonus, many questions should be answered in this chapter, assuming I don’t get super sidetracked.

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The rest of the day continued much like when I was learning Earth Affinity. Slowly… After a few hours, Wind Affinity increased to 3%, and I noticed an increased intake of wind mana just like I had done with earth. At one point, my concentration broke on the wind funnel, and noticed the familiar weights on my shoulders were gone.

In a moment of joy, I thought that Yin and Yang had willingly left, but the thought wasn’t even half formed before two blurs shot out of the forest and immediately perched themselves on my shoulders again. Well… it was nice while it lasted.

Noting the time with Celeste, I decided to log out to have dinner, or lunch, depending on how you look at time. Opening the Seed, I got out and stretched, unconsciously letting out a slight yawn. Moving downstairs to get cooking, I had no idea just how weird today was going to be.

Like before, I chose to cook my meal manually, this time I chose to make a steak. My mind and stomach were yelling to eat something other than stale bread, so a nice juicy slab of meat sounded perfect. Even the thought of a sandwich made me nauseous. Within moments I had the meat on the skillet and cooking, was getting ready to spice it and then made one of the stupidest mistakes a chef can make.

I grabbed the metal handle of the skillet with my bare hand. There was a sizzling sound coming from my hand as pain raced through me. A scream tore at my throat as I hastily let go, but the damage was already done. All along my palm and fingers were thick red burns, making me wince just looking at them. Naturally I ran some cold water over the burn, but even that hurt like hell, to the point where I did something I couldn’t explain.

I healed myself. I felt a sudden rush, and then looked at my palm since it was no longer hurting. Surprisingly, there wasn’t even a blister left, making me doubt my hand had been burnt in the first place. However, I could still smell the burnt flesh in the air, and there was still the sizzling coming from the handle of the skillet.

What just… no, that’s not… I tried to think back to what I had done, but the only thing I could think of was the Alchemic Heal spell I knew from NeoLife. I don’t care how realistic a game is, there is no way that I cast a spell in real life… right?

Even though logic told me it was impossible, the memory of the pain in my hand made me doubt it. As such, I made a conscious effort to connect with the mana in the same way I would in the game, and was stunned to find that there really was something there. For some reason, it didn’t feel quite as dense as it did in the game, but nonetheless I could feel the presence of mana in the real world. At the same time, when I retracted my senses, I saw a haze of blue lights floating in front of me, as if the mana was weaving itself into a familiar pattern. It looked like one of the notification screens from the game.

Congratulations on achieving Full Synchro.As one of the thousand beta testers of NeoLife, we at Manifest Industries formally welcome you to the true world offered by our product. A world where anything is possible.

Customers are advised to remember that, barring the use of magic, there will be no respawning outside of NeoLife. Everyone is granted a chance to make a new world for themselves, a new life. What path will you take?

I blinked a bit as I looked at the screen. I even waved my hand through it, causing it to turn into a cloud of blue mist before reforming. This just isn’t…. it’s not possible, right?

Everything felt like it was turning upside down, and I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick. Rushing to the bathroom, I didn’t even make it all the way before I froze in place, looking at the mirror through the doorway. What I saw was my face, my body… but it wasn’t MY face, MY body… I looked like Falenel, the six foot half-elf with shoulder-length light brown hair, dark green eyes, and fairly pointed ears.

By now, I was 98% certain that I was going crazy. I rushed to my computer and instantly loaded up the internet, only to confirm it was the world that had gone mad. A thousand people, nine hundred and fifty of them having chosen a non-human race. There were posts on every forum from beta testers saying that they had turned into their character. One person who chose to play a Centrix, a centaur-like alien with two pairs of arms and a third eye, even said that his Seed reshaped itself to match his new body type.

Naturally, nobody believed them, but then came the videos. Some by the testers themselves, others by people saying that aliens had invaded. It had only been at most two hours, but it was already viral. I was secretly thanking myself for having chosen a humanoid character. I don’t know what would have happened if I woke up with the lower body of a horse.

At this time, I received a notification from the house AI telling me that I had an emergency call from law enforcement. I didn’t do anything wrong, did I? I started to panic for a brief moment, before forcing myself to calm down and accept the call.

On the wall, a holographic display of a man in a standard blue police uniform appeared. I couldn’t make out his name due to the low quality of the house’s holo-caller, but that didn’t matter when he introduced himself. “Mr. Hulett, correct? I’m Officer Faraday, of Oakland PD.”

I took a deep breath, and prayed that this would work. “Yes, I’m Mr. Hulett.” A brief flash of surprise crossed my face as I realized I was not bound by the same laws that made me introduce myself by my character name in the real world, but I was happy at this fact. “I take it this is about the recent.. development?”

The officer on-screen nodded his head, and seemed to take a moment to look me over. My holo-caller was fairly low quality, as stated before, so colors weren’t very well transmitted. “Yes, so you’ve heard. We’ve acquired a list of testers for NeoLife, and are attempting to contact them, in order to discuss this… situation.”

“You caught me at just the right-- Oh for fuck’s sake, I’ll be right back officer!” I panicked and ran back to the kitchen, turning the stove off and moving the skillet away. I was even in too much of a hurry to bother putting on an oven mitt, and once again burned myself. “God that smarts!” Since I knew it was possible now, I quickly cast my Alchemic Heal on myself before moving back to the living room to resume the call.

“Is everything okay, sir?” Officer Faraday asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Sorry, officer. In light of recent events, I forgot I had a steak that was ready to burn the house down.” I tried to play off a bit of humor, which did not work against the law enforcement officer.

“I see. Then, I shall get right to it. Have you been affected by this event as many are claiming to be? And if so, in what way? You still appear to be human, from what I can see.”

“Ah, that. Yeah… I just noticed I was affected before you called. My ingame race is half-elf, so looking fairly human is not surprising.”

He looked a bit suspicious at that, as if not believing me. “Can you provide any proof of this change, then?”

I nodded, and closed my eyes. There was a slight tearing noise as I focused, but soon I had cast Aspect of the Bird, creating the four angelic wings. In hindsight, I should have taken off my now-ruined shirt… “This is a spell I learned ingame… it seems they can be cast out here too.” To further prove my point, I started hovering a few feet in the air, but that only lasted for a few moments.

Nonetheless, it was enough to startle the officer, who was now looking at me with a slack-jawed expression. “I-I see.. So it’s true, then. You’re the only tester living in our jurisdiction, so we weren’t sure whether to believe it or not. And to be quite frank, if you hadn’t shown that… that, just now, I doubt I would have believed myself.”

Judging by the movements of his shoulders, he seemed to be reaching for something off screen. “Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about this. We received a fax about an hour ago saying that all Manifest sites and employees have vanished from the face of the world. All of their locations are now abandoned lots that show no evidence of having been used in the last year. This seems to have happened overnight. Had it not been for me seeing you grow wings, I’d say it was impossible. Their site remains active, and continues to accept pre-orders for the next line of Seeds. However, we have no idea where they intend to ship from.”

I was a bit confused why he was telling all of this to me, but I figured it must be some kind of consolation speech about how they’re trying their best to make me human again. “Officer, all things considered, I think I got off lucky. I’d bet at least a quarter of the testers chose races that were not humanoid. All I got is a makeover and magic.”

He paused at that, not seeming to know how to respond, before nodding his head slightly. “Understood. Is there anything else you think we should know pertaining to this event?”

I thought about that for a few moments, but could only come to one conclusion. “This is only the beginning. Thanks to my class, I am able to sense things, primarily mana. There is mana in the air here, though it is not as thick as it is in the game. If the Seeds are truly making this world more like the game, then I’d expect the mana to be of the same quality.”

He raised an eyebrow again, but didn’t say anything for a while. “I see… While officially I am required to ask you to refrain from playing NeoLife if at all possible, in light of this I think it would be best if you continue, at least until we know more. If what you say is true, then we have no idea what will happen. Best case scenario, nothing, everything stays as it is now. Worst case, I think, monsters roaming the streets. Not players turned into aliens, but real monsters.”

I was a bit shocked by that. It seemed as though Officer Faraday had played a few games as well to think of that. “Well, was planning on it anyways. Even if shit hits the fans, still gotta pay the bills.” I shrugged, and thanked him for the advice before dismissing the call. I still had a steak to eat, though slightly burnt now.

After eating the steak, and connecting back to the game, a thought occurred to me. Nature Magic’s Alchemic Heal is based on the interaction of plants. But those plants don’t exist in the real world, so how did that spell work on the outside?

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Author’s Basement: And there it is folks! A bit shorter of a chapter than normal, but this should answer quite a few questions about the direction of the story. Like always, I will do my best to keep an eye on the thread for questions, and answer what I can.