《The Luckiest Mage》 Prologue - The Fall Prologue - The Fall Chase let out a panicked sigh of relief. He was hanging upside down from the platform he¡¯d been working on after two of the three safety lines had snapped. He glanced down - or should he call it up given his current position - at the ground some 50 stories below him and gulped. He was suddenly rethinking whether his part-time summer job cleaning windows to pay for his next semester at university was the right decision. Sure the pay was good but he wouldn¡¯t get to spend it if he died from a heart attack or ended up needing to use it all for trauma counselling due to near death experiences. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Chase craned his neck skywards and looked at the window cleaning platform above him, One solitary wire keeping him attached, he glanced to his right at the two other lines dangling from his side. He¡¯d thought the company had been a bit overly cautious when they had insisted on always having three safety lines but now he was thanking every god he knew the name of for the Health and Safety official who made that rule. He had just finished with the Greek pantheon and was starting on the Norse gods when he heard a SNAP and suddenly the ground was rushing towards him. He did what any sane person would do in that situation and immediately started screaming. However, as the ground got ever closer he spotted something strange. He just had time to think ''Is that a portal'' before everything morphed into technicolour and then vanished into blackness. Chapter 1 - Wake up Chapter 1 - Wake Up When Chase woke up he immediately started screaming again, this wasn¡¯t solely because the last thing he remembered was him falling to his apparently not so certain death. It was also due to the fact that there was a man wearing a labcoat looking down on him with a look of manic glee on his face and Chase had just come to the realisation that his limbs were restrained to the table. Once again screaming was really the only sensible reaction to this situation. To add even more on top of that, the man¡¯s face wasn¡¯t right. It was too angular, sharp, and the ears had a distinct point. Now normally Chase would pretty quickly identify this being as an elf but in his current state the conclusion he leapt to was alien and he was fairly certain he was about to be dissected. In response to Chase¡¯s screams the elf frowned, wiped the spittle from his glasses then started writing in a notebook while talking aloud. ¡°Communication and translation spells appear to have failed, Subject 2 is even less intelligible than Subject 1 was without the translation spells, all speech patterns seem to simply come out as screams¡± This caused Chase to stop the aforementioned screaming as his fear was beginning to change into confusion instead. The elf continued to speak and write, ¡°I need to figure out what went wrong with the translation spell, or perhaps the transportation spell failed and rendered the subject insane.¡± The elf somewhat snapped out his clinical tone as worry and sadness crept into his voice. ''Well'' Chase thought ''at least he somewhat cares about my mental well-being. That''s a good sign at least.'' His heart rate slowed even further with that realisation.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. The elf continued muttering to himself has he wrote, he''d been noticeably more subdued since he leapt to the conclusion that he''d given Chase brain damage and Chase used that time to try and gather his thoughts. Eventually he gathered his courage and raised his voice. "Hello" it came out hoarse and dry, not surprising given the amount of screaming he''d just been doing. The elf, and Chase had finally realized it was an elf, turned towards him and the manic look of joy slowly returned to his face and his teeth glinted in the light. He deliberately turned to a new page in his journal and looked at Chase "Oh good, I have so many questions" For the first time in this chain of events Chase got angry. Previously he''d been far too terrified for the emotion to take root but now it welled up from within him. "You have questions! I''m the one who just woke up restrained to a table in the middle of your lab" he shouted "I bet I have way more questions than you!" By the time he''d finished yelling that. The first part of the sentence fully registered and he remembered that given his current restraints he wasn''t really in a strong position to make demands. Just like that the anger vanished as quickly as it had arrived. "Maybe we can trade questions" he said in a much more measured tone before giving the elf a weak smile. "Okay," the elf said, his mood undented by Chase''s outburst "First question. What is your Luck". Chase took a moment to try and get his head around the question that made little sense. "Um¡­ bad I guess" he hesitantly answered, pretty sure he wasn''t going to make the elf that had him restrained happy with the answer but unable to think of a better one. As expected the elf frowned before saying "no not your luck I mean your Luck, as in the stat" "That has clarified absolutely nothing" he flatly told the eccentric elf who frowned in thought once again. Eventually he simply said "nevermind, it seems we''re going to have to ask a few more questions before I can ask the big one." Chapter 2 - Questions Chapter 2 - Questions In the silence following that statement Chance mulled over his options on what to say he decided that the five W''s - Who, Where, What, When and Why - were a good place to start ''Okay'' he thought to himself let''s start with the basics for meeting a new person. "Who are you?" he asked. The elf replied "Rhuyn de Valeer at your service." There was an expectant pause immediately following that and Chase suddenly realised he should probably return the favour. "Ehm... Chase, Chase Richards" he stuttered out hastily and tried to raise his hand so he could offer it to the elf to shake. That plan was immediately shelved once he realised that he was still restrained to the table.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Chase paused waiting to see if the elf was going to ask a question of his own before saying "Um, where exactly am I?" "You are in my laboratory, just outside the city of Sylene in the world of Aernith." Chase''s Jaw dropped but after a second he realised that between the portal and the alien/elf there was never really any chance he was still on earth. Gaining a bit more confidence from the elf''s willingness to answer his questions he carried on. "How did I get here" "An altered hero summoning portal" the elf He stated matter-of-factly. Once again Chase''s jaw dropped. This time it stayed down for much longer. Eventually he gathered his wits and asked the question that was burning inside him. "Does that¡­ make me a hero?" Chapter 3 - A Hero Chapter 3 - A Hero "No" With one word he crushed all of Chase''s hopes of being a hero. "What? You just said you used a hero summoning portal." "I used an altered summoning portal" the elf stated calmly "What''s the difference?" The elf entered lecture mode, a state that seemed to fit him like a glove. "Well, first I stripped all of the prophecies and foretelling. That was a real mana sink. I removed the filter that searched for people that liked to champion causes and most of another one that searched for high base stats. I even had to remove a filter that looked for people who were either orphans or had abusive parents growing up. That was a weird one. By the end of it the only things left were the inter-dimensional summoning portal, a filter looking for people near death, a velocity cancelling spell and a search for people with a high Luck stat. Oh and a filter that made it so the hero had to be between 17 and 24. I couldn''t figure out how to disable that one. I added back the translation spell after the experience with Subject 1 though. So in the end anything that would make you a hero was removed." Chance stared blankly at the elf for a moment while he tried to make out the useful information from the overwhelming info dump the elf had just given him. He decided to make a quick mental list. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
  1. He was not a hero. This really shouldn''t have been a surprised him since he''d never done anything particularly heroic. He was in college about to start his second year of computer science. He hadn''t died pushing a kid out of the way of a truck. Instead he''d been about to fall to his death as the result of a freak accident. Still, for some reason being straight up told that he wasn''t a hero hurt.
  2. Magic - Magic was a thing here, this meant he was definitely in a fantasy world. He was quite happy with that since the only other conceivable possibility he could think of was a sci-fi alien abduction and those always seemed to have a lot more dissections in them than fantasy settings. Also space was scary, travelling around in a metal box and likely dying if anything damaged the too thin walls that separated you from billions of miles of empty space. Chase would give that a hard pass
  3. Asking Rhuyn for a more detailed explanation about anything related to magic seemed like it was going to end up with him getting an absolutely overwhelming barrage of info. He had met some people like that in real life who took any opportunity to talk about their passions but he''d definitely be better asking more focused questions if he didn''t want another lecture, the professor kind, not the angry mom kind.
  4. Rhuyn actually seemed reasonably friendly if you ignore the whole restraining him to a table. He had also apparently saved his life, Chase shuddered as he remembered the sight of the ground rushing towards him. Yep saving his life definitely earned Rhuyn some brownie points. Overall Rhuyn gave off vibes that were a lot more wizard savant rather than mad scientist though the the two were quite similar and the restraints were indeed a point in favour of option 2.
  5. Magic - There was magic in this world. This may have been covered in point 2 but it bore repeating because magic was freaking awesome. He probably would have been making some very unmanly noises somewhere between squealing with joy and giggling at that fact if not for the turmoil of other emotions he was already experiencing.
  6. Subject 1 - If he was Subject 2 then what the hell had happened to Subject 1?
After completing the list he looked around the room again to see that while he''d been processing the data and working out a plan the elf had gone back to writing furiously in his notebook. Deciding that point 6 was the one that he most needed to pursue he asked the question he''d decided was most important as the answer would likely have a large impact on his immediate future. "Sorry" he called out catching the elf''s attention "What exactly happened to Subject 1" Chapter 4 - Subject 1 Chapter 4 - Subject 1 The elf looked up and nervously started speaking looking very embarrassed. Not the reaction Chase had been expecting. "Well" he started "Uhh Subject 1 ran away" Chase looked towards his wrist in it''s restraints. His thoughts must have been clear because the elf continued. "Those are a new addition, I do learn from my mistakes. The clothes are new too." Chase suddenly realised that he was indeed wearing a new set of clothing. He wasn''t particularly surprised he''d missed that detail since he had a lot on his plate at the moment. "The portaI doesn''t transport anything that isn''t biological unfortunately" the elf explained. "I had also removed the translation aspect of the spell the first time, the result was some serious issues with communication and when I stepped closer to the subject they punched me in the face, stole my spare labcoat and ran away." Chase looked at the elf sceptically "Let me get this straight. You kidnapped some random guy who had almost died, took him to a new planet, where was unable to communicate with anyone and was butt naked while you belonged to a species they had never seen before. And for some reason you didn''t think they''d panic?"If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. "Subject 1 was actually female" the elf replied as if correcting Chase leant his position some kind of defense. "That''s even worse!" Chase shouted. "Also have you considered that waking up bound to a table is also terrifying, you''re lucky I didn''t have a heart attack! Also stop calling us subjects, it''s creepy! " The elf hung his head dejectedly. "I''m afraid I must apologise then Chase Richards" he says "I completely forgot to factor in the fact that the sub¡­ err - participants of my experiments need emotional care as well as physical, I tried to address that somewhat with your clothes and reintroducing the translation aspect of the spell but it appears that it wasn''t enough. I assure you though that I have brought you here for a good cause and have nothing but the best intentions for you" Seeing his captor look so down made him feel bad which immediately made him instead question whether it was possible to suffer from Stockholm Syndrome after ten minutes of conversation? Deciding that that was probably not enough time and that the elf who had saved his life was probably genuinely an okay guy, just a bit socially inept he decided to ask his next question. "Em, If I promise not to run away, steal your labcoat or punch you in the face will you let me out of these restraints?" "Oh! Sure, okay. Um where did I leave the key again?" the elf muttered looking a bit sheepish Chapter 5 - Release Chapter 5 - Release Chase stretched gleefully as he stood up free at last. Admittedly he''d only been lying down for about an hour and a half between being unconscious for roughly an hour, 10 minutes of conversation and about 20 minutes of just laying there while Rhuyn looked for his misplaced key. Still, between the fact that tables were not designed to be lain on and that thinking you are going to be tortured or dissected can make your muscles quite tense Chase was in dire need of a stretch. After a minute of contorting his body into odd shapes he turned to the elf who was looking at him quizzically. "So whatever happened to the poor girl who you terrified" he asked somewhat tactlessly, the Elf''s face immediately switched from quizzical to a distinctly upset expression. "I couldn''t find her, I wandered around for two weeks with a search spell that would have notified me if I came within 200 paces of my labcoat, it has an automatic cleaning enchantment which should have resonated with my mana and I asked everyone I met l if they had seen anyone resembling her description who couldn''t speak or understand them. I¡¯ve also posted a bounty for information on her location. At this point she''s been missing for 3 weeks though. I¡¯m not sure what more I can do¡±Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Deciding that if the native didn¡¯t know how to locate the girl then he had absolutely no chance. So instead Chase went and changed topic. "So earlier on you said you brought me here for a good cause, what exactly is that cause?" "You are going to be a central part of my thesis paper" Chase stared blankly at the elf. "That''s your ''good cause?'' It sounds more like a ''selfish cause'' how does that help anyone?" "Well if my thesis is proved correct then it will directly lead to the end of the persecution of a large section of society, a technological revolution and the indirect betterment of millions of lives" Chase''s jaw dropped, it was becoming a habit at this point, but that really did sound like a good cause, in fact it sounded more like a ''heroic cause''... Wait a second, did that make Rhuyn a hero? And if Rhuyn was a hero did that make Chase¡­ a sidekick? No! He refused to believe that he''d been saved from certain death and transported to another world just to become a sidekick. That couldn''t be right¡­ could it? Surely not¡­ right? Deciding to put those worries to the side for a moment and hoping that the answer to his next question might remove those worries entirely Chase focused back on the present and asked the elf "How exactly are you going to do that?" Rhuyn looked at him and said, with a triumphant glint in his eyes. "I''m going to prove that Luck isn''t actually a bad thing." Chapter 6 - Big Blue Box pt.1 Physical Chapter 6 - Big Blue Box pt.1 Physical ¡°Why would you need to prove that? And isn¡¯t luck always a good thing? And how is it that I can ¡°hear¡± that you are capitalising luck, what the hell is that? The elf perked up at that last part. ¡°Oh! That must be the translation spell!¡± within a second he was writing in his journal which seemed to have appeared from nowhere. ¡°What do you mean capitalised? Is it louder than the rest of the word when you hear it? Is Luck the only word that is capitalised? What about if I say it like this - ¡®luck¡¯. What about this - ¡®strength¡¯ - ¡®Strength¡¯ - can you tell me which one was capitalised?¡± Chance felt overwhelmed with the tsunami of questions but he tried to answer a few. Yes he could hear whether or not he was using the lowercase versions, No it wasn¡¯t exactly louder, instead it just was. He knew that it was capitalised the same way he could tell the direction gravity was pulling him from the feeling in his body. It was like an inbuilt sense but the fact that he¡¯d magically gained a new sense was freaking him out. Eventually he interrupted him - ¡°Okay i get this is interesting for you but why is this happening to me?¡± ¡°This is only a hypothesis mind you but I suspect that the spell is trying to indicate the use of a word in a way that has no parallel in your world.¡± Rhuyn explained. ¡°Hmm I can¡¯t answer the rest of your earlier questions until you understand the biggest difference between our worlds. Chase can you please say ¡®status¡¯ for me ¡°Um okay, Status¡±
Name: Chase Richard Species: Human
Age: 19 Class: Please Select Class
Physical
Strength 48 Fortitude 48
Agility 41 Flexibility 39
Dexterity 56
MentalThis story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Intelligence 67 Willpower 35
Perception 46 Charisma 58
Innate
Luck 241 Magic 57
Elemental Affinities
Nature -42% Metal 11%
Electricity 16%
¡°Whoah!¡± he exclaimed as a blue screen popped up in front of his face and filled his vision. ¡°Yes, I imagine it¡¯s a lot of information at first, would you like some help going through it?¡± ¡°Definitely¡± Chase said as he was tilting his head in weird angles to try and get it so he could see both the elf and the screen at the same. When he eventually managed it he could see the elf struggling not to laugh at him and not particularly succeeding. Chase pouted and said ¡°Ha ha, very funny, now how do I close this damned thing so I can have a normal conversation with you¡± ¡°Just say ¡®Close Status¡¯ when you want to close it but I''d recommend keeping it open while we go through this, it should be handy to have something to reference while going through this.¡± ¡°First of all, near the top you can see your general information, most of this should already be known to you. The one exception is the Class section, as you have no class you should have a message telling you to select one. Do not do this yet.¡± Chase quickly discovered that not mentally clicking on the flashing ¡°Please Select Class¡± button was quite difficult in a way that reminded him of trying not to think of pink elephants when someone tells you ¡®Don¡¯t think about pink elephants¡¯. Fortunately Rhuyn soon continued with his explanation and Chase was able to distract himself. ¡°Up next are the Physical Stats, These are stats based on your body¡¯s physical ability and can be improved simply with training but will decay with age. A young human just past puberty should be averaging around 55 in these just from everyday work¡± Chase winced at that. He was well below par there. Admittedly he wasn¡¯t fat, in fact he was closer to skinny than fat, it¡¯s just he stayed that way through good diet rather than exercise. He spent most of his day in front of the computer and it really showed. It hurt to see the numbers laid out like that. Seeing his reaction the elf said ¡°Don''t worry if these stats are a bit low at the moment, as I said, you can raise these with a bit of work¡± ¡°The first of these stats is Strength. Strength is an indicator of how strong you are relative to the rest of your species it is believed that the strongest you can get without a class is 100. This is thought to be true for all species. One of the important things to remember though is that a high strength only makes you strong relative to your species. A 50 strength Giant will still be able to outmuscle a 90 strength Halfling.¡± ¡°Fortitude is about recovery and damage limitation and unlike Strength this stat isn¡¯t individual to a race. A 50 Fortitude Giant and a 50 Fortitude human will both take a similar amount of damage when hit by club, though for the giant the area that got hurt would be a smaller percentage of its body than the humans. Most humans will have a fortitude in the 40-60 range. As a more extreme example, dragons are said to have a natural fortitude around 200 at adulthood. This is due to the diamond hard scales and insanely fast recovery speed. At that point they¡¯re borderline indestructable to the average adventurer. While 200 is practically unachievable for humans, getting over 100 is usually enough to be able to take at least one hit from just about anything.¡± ¡°Agility is your physical reaction speed. Get it high enough and you can catch an arrow out of the air but you should be aware that it doesn¡¯t make you better at multitasking. Dodging a single arrow, no problem, but a dozen with some from places outside your line of sight, you¡¯re screwed if that happens.¡± "Flexibility is simply your body''s ability to bend, at normal values this is just your joints but at higher values even your bones will bend if you will them to." Chase grimaced at the image. ¡°Yes, it is rather unpleasant to look at¡± Rhuyn said. ¡°And last of the Physical stats is Dexterity. It is defined as the ability to make quick and precise movements. Dexterity is often focused on by craftspeople but bow related classes also often use this stat.¡± To be continued... Chapter 6 - Big Blue Box pt.2 Mental Chapter 6 - Big Blue Box pt.2 Mental "Intelligence refers to a combination of your ability to retain information and is also related to your speed of thought. However, everyone''s thought processes are different and just because a person with an Intelligence stat of 100 can run through about twice as many mental scenarios per unit of time as someone with 50, that doesn''t necessarily mean they will reach the right answer first. Add to that the biases that each individual person has and there is no guarantee that the best person to help with a given question will be the person with the highest Intelligence." "Still, a high intelligence is usually needed to cast a non-cantrip spell in any reasonable amount of time for Mages. Lots of other classes like Administrator and many others which require sorting through large amounts of information and memorization are based primarily on this stat. Chase spoke up, interrupting for the first time in a while. "So is 67 high then?" Given the fact that humans seemed to have around 50 in most stats so far he assumed it was but after how badly he''d done in the Physical stats then he wanted a bit of an ego boost The Elf''s eyebrows rose "yes very high for someone with no class yet, were you studying to become a scholar by any chance?" "Not particularly" Chase replied "I was only one year through my three year computer science degree" "Your Intelligence should not be that high from just one year of study. It takes years of practicing memorisation and logic to get it that high." "Oh well I spent from the age of 4 until 17 in school, but everyone does that" The elf stared at him in shock, Chase quite enjoyed the moment. It was much nicer to be on the receiving end of that expression rather than being the one with it on his face. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. "Y-you mean everyone on your planet gets thirteen years of education!" "Em, well where I''m from, basically yes, though in poorer countries that''s not always the case and some people do leave early but most people do around 13 years depending on the country." "I have so many questions" Rhuyn said for the second time that day and for the second time that day Chase shut him down. This time a lot less angrily. "Nope" he replied before Rhuyn could get too excited. "what do you mean ''nope''" "I mean I''m not answering your questions until you finish answering mine" he said. "Remember, you kidnapped me. I feel I''m owed my explanation first that at least" Chase conveniently ''forgot'' to include the fact that the kidnapping had saved his life but he really didn''t want to get too sidetracked from Rhuyn''s explanation. It was definitely more important that he learnt about the world he was currently in than for Rhuyn to learn about his world. "Fine" the elf pouted but he didn''t put up too much resistance. "Where was I¡­ yes, Willpower. Willpower is the ability to resist negative mental effects, be it stress, exhaustion, channeling too much mana, spells and poisons that affect your perception of reality such as alcohol, hallucinogens and other drugs. Forcing yourself to do something you dislike also help increase the stat. Willpower is vital for mages as at high levels it allows for casting spells at once. Without a Willpower of over 60 you are liable to knock yourself out with the mental strain." Chase looked at his stats. Following the theme that 50 is around average his 35 Willpower was pretty abysmal. Still it wasn''t that unexpected. School wasn''t particularly difficult for him, and he''d never had to try too hard to live up to his parents'' expectations. As long as he made it into college they were happy. Apart from some very mild bullying in school his life had been pretty easy. He was kind of paying for that now with his low Willpower and physical stats but it was hard to feel too bad that he had been living a pleasant and easy life. ¡°Perception is the ability to detect slight changes in the environment around you. This is not simply your sight. It is all of your senses. In fact Perception is actually a common skill for people with impaired vision, a blind woman with 90 perception can walk down a busy street without a problem using only her sense of sound. The noise of others¡¯ footsteps and the echo of noise off any obstacles near her would be enough. And that¡¯s just sound, all your senses get improved.¡± ¡°Last of the Mental skills is Charisma. Now this is probably the most obscure of the skills so far. Charisma doesn¡¯t directly make you better looking or automatically make people like you. Instead it makes you better at conveying your opinions, reading emotions, convincing others, predicting people¡¯s emotional reactions and more.¡±