“Learning never exhausts the mind”

- Leonardo Da Vinci

The world resumed its normal pace, and everyone woke up around me. I quickly jogged up to my friends and chatted excitedly about how real everything felt and looked. I also took the time to perform an experiment.

“Ow!” Gabriel yelled when I punched him in the side of the head.

“Did it really hurt or are you just saying that?” I questioned.

“No, it really fuckin hurt!” He growled.

“How much damage did it do?” I asked.

“Uhh… looks like about 10,” he answered.

“Hm, how about this?” I asked, punching him in the center of the chest, using the same amount of force as before. He grunted on impact.

“Only about 6.”

“Interesting, so it looks like not only are there going to be critical hits, there’s also going to be natural resistance or weakness to damage based on where you hit them. I’d look to do some experiments using weapons, but we don’t have any, and quite frankly I don’t want to start hacking at each other.”

Tom spoke up, “Actually, I asked Telles about that, and he said that if we walk about a mile that way and over that hill, we’ll find a small village with weapons. He told me that in 24 hours, we’ll freeze until the entry into the game, so we better hurry.”

We immediately set to a jog, the yellow bar representing my stamina draining slowly but steadily.

After about 8 minutes, we crested the hill and saw the ‘village’ Telles had informed Tom of. It was really only about 8 buildings. Upon closer inspection, I could tell that they were really just the basic skill buildings in a village. Obviously, this was so that players had a chance to gain some of the useful skills they would want in the game. At first glance, I could see a blacksmith, a carpenter, a tailor, a library or scribe building, a jeweler, and three others I didn’t immediately recognize. One was a large glass building, but the glass fluctuated in color and opacity, making it hard to look through. I figured that this was accomplished through magic, which meant that that was my first stop.

“Alright, I think we should split up and find the relevant skills we’ll want. Is anyone looking to be a crafter-type?” Gabriel raised his hand.

“No caster this time, Gabe?” I asked, puzzled.

“Well, Telles said that not only can we get classes, but we can gain professions that offer certain bonuses. I can be a caster and a crafter at the same time. Apparently magical items can get ridiculously powerful.”

“I see. Well, I would recommend that casters come with me to that building over there, and the martialists go to the blacksmith shop. Gabe, why don’t you come with us to the caster building and see how difficult it is, then you can check out the crafters’ shop?”

“Well, we only have 24 hours and I think I’ll need to acquire a wide variety of skills, so why don’t you guys learn them and then you can teach me later if I miss my chance here.”

“Alright, I can see the reason in that. Is everyone okay with the plan?”

Everyone nodded their assent, and we each went our separate ways. Rich and I walked up to the crystalline building, looking for an entrance. Pretty much everyone else went into the blacksmith shop, including Gabriel. Rich and I walked up to the glass wall and pressed our hand against it, testing the durability. It immediately melted away, leaving a man-sized hole for us to walk through. We found ourselves walking into a grand lobby, with a spiral staircase leading up to a second landing with shelves filled with hundreds of books. Upon our entry, a robed man, who looked identical toTelles, walked down the stairs and waved.

“Welcome, immortals. Shall I regale the wonders of magic to you?” Telles asked. We nodded, and Telles disappeared, reappearing ten feet behind it. He waved a hand and a wall of flame burst into existence around us, shattering several shelves. The flames disappeared, and a wave of Telles’ hands restored the broken shelves and books. He wrote several symbols into the air, summoning three human guards from nowhere. A blast of lightning and they were dead, only to be raised again by some sort of necromancy spell.

“You see the power of the arcane?” Telles questioned.

“Telles, I am intrigued,” I answered, enthralled by the power he exhibited.

“My name is not Telles,” he laughed, “though I understand the confusion. My name is Spelles.”

You’ve gotta be shitting me, I thought. Oh well, you couldn’t expect Game Devs to give up stupid jokes just because they were designing a brand new eternity for millions of people. Or did they design this? Wasn’t the whole thing supposed to be run by an AI to limit the control Microsoft had over players and the world.

“So, can you teach me any healing spells?” Rich asked, getting to the point quickly. I didn’t blame him, especially because we only had 24 hours!

“I can offer a basic spell attack to each of you. It will take about three hours to learn that. Does that sound appealing? I will demonstrate it now,” Spelles replied, placing the heels of his hands together and grunting some sort of spell word. A bolt of blue energy jetted out from his hands, smashing into the crystal fifty feet away. Rich and I looked at each other with wide eyes and nodded at Spelles, signaling our enthusiasm. Spelles cast another spell causing the shelves to collapse into the floor around us. A target arose in the center of the floor, a large crystal ball.

“There are two main stats that impact your spellcasting ability: Intelligence and Wisdom. Intelligence will mainly affect your mana pool, whereas Wisdom will affect your mana-regeneration rate. However, there is one more thing that these stats do; Intelligence will provide a slight boost to the power of spells you cast, and Wisdom will increase the amount of creatures you can control. Generally the number if figured out by dividing your Wisdom stat by 3. Each point in Intelligence above 10 generally increases spell power by 0.4%. In terms of learning spells, there are three ways: being gifted the spell by a higher power upon level-up, through the use of a spellbook, or through the tutelage of someone that already knows the spell and is a master of it, like me with [Mana Bolt]. [Mana Bolt] is a beginner-level arcane spell; it has no elemental affinity, and it requires a spell-casting level of 0 to use. All you have to do is imagine your mana coalescing into a small ellipsoid in front of both hands and then firing away from you. Go ahead and try it. In 2 hours, you should learn it completely and can practice it away from me. Once you reach mastery rank 10 in [Mana Bolt] you can fire it with just one hand, like this,” Spelles informed us, raising both hands and firing mana bolts in opposite directions. I tried it, imagining an ellipsoid forming in between my hands and launching away from me. To my surprise, it worked! A spear of black energy rocketed away from my body, slamming into the crystal sphere in the center of the floor. A moment later, I saw Rich’s red mana follow suit.

“Excellent! Do that for two hours and you’ll receive a notification,” Spelles said.

Two hours later, I received a notification.

Congratulations! You have received a new skill:

[Mana Bolt]

Type: Active Spell (Direct)

Level: Beginner (0)

Cost/Cooldown:

10 mana/6 seconds

Damage: 15 arcane

Description:

The user forms a bolt of concentrated mana in between the hands, launching it towards a destination with weak force.

Congratulations! You have received a new skill:

[Spellcasting]

Type: Passive Artform

Rarity: Uncommon

Title: Novice

Rank: 1

Bonus: 0.5% spell potential

Description:

Who needs spears when you have spells? The truly powerful conquer the mind, not the body.

Badass! Apparently there were different types of skills. Obviously there were passive benefits and active abilities, but then there were also the “spell” and “Artform” labels. Not to mention the fact that the mana bolt spell had (direct) on it. I asked Spelles about it.

“Well, there are three types of spells, as I was just about to get into. Direct spells are spells that will directly attack things. These are spells like [Fireball], [Ice Missile], [Destructor Beam], etc. Indirect spells are spells that will not directly affect damage, but still will have a noticeable effect. These are spells like [Healing Rain], [Minor Heal], and [Mind Fog]. Last but certainly not least are summoning spells, like [Create Undead], [Summon Skeleton], and [Summon Elemental]. Summoning Spells can only target dead foes, items, or buildings you command,” Spelles explained. Spells can take varying amounts of time to learn. A beginner level spell will generally take one hour to learn through mentorship. Using spellbooks is almost always instant, much like learning a spell upon a level-up. The rule of thumb for mentorship is that each mastery level of a spell multiplies the spell learning time exponentially; a beginner level spell will take one hour, a novice rank spell will take 2 hours, an intermediate spell four hours, a adept spell eight hours, and a master spell 16 hours. This time can fluctuate based on items you have, buffs, etc, but that’s the basic rule. I can teach you one spell of your chosen path: direct, indirect, or summoning. Here they are:”

[Flare Bolt]

Type: Active Spell (Direct)

Level: Beginner(0)

Cost/Cooldown:

20 mana/10 seconds

Casting Time: Instant

Damage: 30 fire

Description:

The user hurls a small jet of flame at the target, causing fire damage and a small chance of the burn effect.

[Weak Heal]

Type: Active Spell (Indirect)

Level: Beginner(0)

Cost/Cooldown:

20 mana/5 seconds

Casting Time: Instant

Heal: 15 life

Description:

The user fires restores 15 life to one non-undead target within 10 yards.

[Summon Minor Elemental]

Type: Active Spell (Summon)

Level: Beginner(0)

Cost/Cooldown:

100 mana/120 seconds

Casting Time: 1 minute

Duration: 24 hours

Creature Stats:

9 Constitution 8 Dexterity 4 Wisdom 0 Intelligence 10 Strength 4 Charisma

Description:

The user summons a small creature made of fire, water, earth, or air with the base stats listed above as well as a bonus of +2 to one stat decided by the elemental type. Verbal commands can be given to the creature, whose current initiative is to protect the summoner.

I already knew which one I was going to be practicing. Rich, of course, chose [Weak Heal] and I chose [Summon Minor Elemental]. Spelles conjured a pig, set it on fire, and had Rich continuously heal it. He walked over to me.

“You’re in luck, kid. Summoning spells are notoriously hard to explain, so I procured this book for you.” Spelles pulled out a small, leather-bound tome and tossed it to me. A glance revealed that it was a [Spell Tome of Summon Minor Elemental]. I cracked it open and knowledge flooded my brain. It was as if a switch had been flicked, and I suddenly knew exactly what to do. A notification popped up informing me of my new skill, but I dismissed it. My hands wove in strange gestures, tracing sigils into the air. I muttered some kind of phrase and pushed my palm through the center of my drawing. It flared brightly and disappeared, a small whirlwind forming a short distance away. I looked a bit closer at it, seeing that swirling dust was slowly forming a visible pattern for the body.

I dismissed it with a verbal command and tried again, this time focusing on summoning an earth elemental. The pattern repeated, but this time the ground shook slightly as pebbles formed and rolled together to create a short humanoid. I directed it to swing its arms around, dance, and jump up and down for my amusement. I waited 60 seconds and cast the spell again. A tiny dust storm joined my little earth elemental in front of me. Each one was about three feet tall, but they obviously weighed extremely different amounts. Directing them to jump produced drastically different amounts. The air elemental soared almost thirty feet into the air, gently gliding down. The earth elemental went up about 6 inches and came down with a thud. I marvelled at the air elemental as it drifted, considering the tactical implications of the ability for the future. I cast my spell again and summoned another earth elemental. After 60 seconds, I summoned an extra air elemental. One minute later, I cast it again and summoned an earth elemental. This one stood there a moment, then turned towards me, which was weird because the others just kind of stood there.

It suddenly rushed me, flailing its arms and making some kind of growling noise. My current elementals rushed to my defense, restraining the feral creature and bashing its face in repeatedly. After a moment, the offending creature crumbled into dust and disappeared.

“Spelles, what the hell just happened?” I yelled.

“Well, that was your fifth creature, right?” Spelles asked calmly.

“Yeah, so what?” I replied.

“Well, your wisdom stat is 12, which means that your control limit is 4. That’s why the last elemental attacked you.”

Oh.

I felt foolish, but no matter. I practiced some more, dismissing elementals when I got to the control limit. I made them fight each other a little, but the earth elementals always beat the wind elementals, so it was kind of repetitive. I went back to casting Mana Bolt some more while Rich practiced his healing spell. All of a sudden, I felt something slam into my back and my health bar dropped down a bit. Just as quickly, a warm glow filled my body and my health bar filled back up. I whirled around to see Rich with a cheeky grin on his face.

“I learned my spell.”