《STUBBED - Edge of Apocalypse [Progression LitRPG]》 01 - Skill video Nobody knows when the Bureau was founded. Nobody knows how far it extends. But when the first Egg was found, a team was swiftly sent to investigate. Faster than it should have been possible, even with the fastest planes. And then they were gone, before anyone could ask questions. It was the first of the Tier One events, the first wave of what would soon become a global disaster.
Dreamscapes. Strange lands where all that is impossible happens. Places where, sometimes, one can get a glimpse of what the future holds for them. The elven hunters appeared out of the thick foliage of the forest. They were all around, powerful and menacing, watching Albert from the crowns of the strange trees that loomed with their impossible height and thick branches. Their leader was hidden, but he had sent forth an illusion to negotiate the terms of surrender. How Albert knew all that, he did not know. How he managed to be so calm, he did not know. The world was vibrant and sharply in focus. Feelings and sensations revealed much more than what mere sight and sound ever could. It felt like it wasn''t really him inside his body. He felt calm, confident, powerful. There was another man with him, talking with the elf. He did not care about what they said, for he knew where the real source of the illusion was hiding and knew that there was no room for negotiations. With a simple thought, he imposed his will onto the world and activated his Telekinesis ability. The tree where the elf stood exploded in a shower of splinters, and the battle began. Time slowed down. Skills were being invoked, magic flowed freely and easily through Albert¡¯s body. Fireballs, incandescent and powerful, were being tossed at impossibly fast enemies. Explosions shook the forest, seen in slow-motion. Albert found himself weaving through the attacks with ease, intercepting arrows with his bare hands, taking hits that did not hurt, healing himself with magic. He jumped through space and time as the elven hunters all attacked him. His other companion also took hits, but also fiercely fought back with his colossal sword and tanked hits with his massive armor. Albert reached out to somewhere and suddenly he was holding a massive machine gun and raining fire on the forest. Then he had a sword, with an infinitely sharp edge that never dulled. The battle raged on. For minutes. The tide was uncertain. Albert felt tired, the adrenaline keeping him focused but the prolonged battle sapping him of his strength. He pulled some crystals from his somewhere space, and absorbed them. Feeling refreshed, he once again went on the offensive. Chain lightning blossomed from his fingertips, striking his foes and exploding entire branches of trees with its deadly electricity. Fireballs manifested out of nowhere, on command. Yet, they seemed to be losing. A dark shadow passed through Albert¡¯s heart. And he did not recognize himself anymore. He knew that the man whose eyes he was looking through was not him. He could never be him. He could never do what that man wanted to do.
[New quest] The strange, unexpected, floating text woke Albert up from his sleep. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and noticed that it was still dark outside. It was two in the morning, the big red digits on his clock told him. His brain slowly started to pick up speed as the vestiges of sleep were forcefully purged from his mind by the adrenaline. His hands were shaking uncontrollably. This was a System Scenario. The unexpected happened. The impossible happened. The very same thing he, along with thousands of other nerds like him always dreamt about, happened before his very eyes. And yet, this was real and not a dream, his reality checks all but ruled out that possibility. There was a system, and it talked about mana, which meant that there was magic too. As far as he knew, he was the only one to whom such a thing had ever happened. Of course, there were a couple possibilities that might explain why he had never heard of magic, real magic, before. Either it was kept perfectly secret, or maybe¡­ the system and whatever magic it talked about had just arrived on planet Earth. He was knowledgeable enough about this matter to know not to discount these possible scenarios, lest they come back to bite him in the ass down the road. For now, however, he felt that it was perfectly fine for him to take a little moment to let the reality of the situation sink in, before throwing himself in the main character training montage. Which was almost inevitable, if the ongoing quest was anything to go by.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. As the moment passed, he took a deep breath, and tried to calm his raging mind. Left to its own devices, his brain was surely going to go off on a million tangents, thinking about this and that and all the wonderful and probably terrible things to come. As much as he liked to think that he was prepared, Albert knew that he was not. His ¡®preparedness¡¯ was nothing more than daydreaming about magic in his spare time, and sometimes even during class, thinking himself as the main character of the novel he was reading at the moment. Well, not always the main character. In fact, he had a deep appreciation for the often neglected secondary characters of the stories, the secondary cast that more often than not was just background characters who did nothing but live for the protagonist in some way. In his mind, they deserved more than what they got. And in his mind, he was not main character material, but he would do wonders as a sidekick. Reality was not a story, however, as much as he liked to think it as one. Even the appearance of the system didn¡¯t change that, not really. If his guess was right, after a brief time of apparent peace, his life was about to become quite hectic. He¡¯d better prepare. He glanced at the clock again. 2:13 AM. More than five hours until the alarm went off. He sat upright on his bed, propping his back against the cold wall. It felt pleasant, a welcome respite from the lingering heat of September in a big city. He closed his eyes, and crossed his legs. Of course, he had no idea on how to even approach the quest, and if the arrival of the system had changed anything on the planet or within himself, he hadn''t noticed anything. This meant that, while the quest had to be doable, it was not going to be easy. Feeling the flow of mana. As far as generic requests went, it reminded him of his own mother¡¯s random and generic ¡®quests¡¯, as they were, although perhaps this one was even more generic than being asked to ''clean the room'', but not by much. It was like asking someone to feel their own brain think, or their own blood move through their veins. Did it make any sense? Could it be done? Albert spent three hours trying to answer that particular question. He was about to give up, for the umpteenth time, but decided to focus on a particular feeling for a little while longer. His patience had long since run dry, and he was running on fumes and on his own stubbornness and excitement. If this was enough to make him quit, then he wasn''t suited for magic after all. That, he refused to accept. Thus, he focused on that little prickling feeling he felt right between his eyes, under the first layer of his skin. It was a sensation that made itself known whenever he achieved a particular state of mind he had trouble describing, but no issue replicating. He had first felt this strange sensation back when he had read about Qi online, in a blog article. It was a bogus article. Nothing had happened, of course. There was no cultivation in the real world, and the eastern monks were all nut cases who hit their balls with bricks. But the sensation was odd enough that when he wanted to have some idle fun, he just closed his eyes and tried to feel it until it became almost uncomfortable. This time he pushed through the uncomfortableness. It was like breaking a glass wall. Somehow, strange sensations began to flood in. Even when he opened his eyes, and looked around, and the strange mental state subsided, they kept coming. Intangible yet very real sensations. [Quest complete.] The reward for the quest appeared before his eyes. He didn''t pay much attention to the wording of the reward itself, earlier when he got the quest, but now he finally realized what the system meant by skill video. It was an actual video window, floating in mid air before his eyes like some sort of augmented reality. ¡°Welcome. In this video, we will talk about perception.¡± the man in the video said. It looked oddly like Albert himself, and spoke just like him, or rather like the version of him that lived in his fantasy. ¡°In order to practice magic, perception is key. You cannot move that which you cannot see, right? You cannot affect that which you don¡¯t know is there, can you? No. Perception is the foundation upon which we will build all of our magic, a skill never to be neglected, never to be left behind. It might not be flashy, it might not be something to show your friends, but it¡¯s what makes a great mage, as opposed to a mediocre one. It¡¯s what saves your life. It¡¯s always the punch you don''t see coming that puts you down.¡± Wait, Albert thought. But the version of him in the video just went on. ¡°It¡¯s a quote from Riddick.¡± he said, deadpan. ¡°Now, then, onto perception itself.¡±
[Skill acquired: Perception I] It was way past the time the alarm usually rang, but Albert had only distractedly hit the snooze button before returning to the video. It took him surprisingly little, once the video ended, to understand the explanation and put theory into practice. Perhaps this was the power of system-rewarded skill videos. It felt almost as if the knowledge was always there in his head, only hidden. The skill didn¡¯t do much. When he used it, he felt that the world became a little bit more vibrant, a little bit louder, and he could see a bit more details. It was like that scene from Limitless, but nothing extravagant. He did feel a little tired after a while, something that compounded with his headache that he got from the sensory overload of a prolonged skill use. Looking inward, he could vaguely feel that he was a little bit less, in terms of those unknown things he felt when he was feeling for mana. It made sense. He spent most of his mana playing around with [Perception], and now he needed to rest and replenish his reserves. A knock on the door told him that rest was for the wicked. ¡°Albert!¡± his mother said. ¡°You¡¯re gonna miss the bus.¡± 02 - Flexing muscles Albert struggled to keep himself awake through yet another day of classes. It was not that he didn¡¯t like studying per se, but compared to magic it certainly lacked that feeling of wonder. Combine it with the fact that he had chosen an Engineering course just because he could use it to get a ¡®real¡¯ job, and not because of a passion, and you can understand why Albert was literally on the edge of his seat during class. The system had not, almost like it was reading his mood or something, coughed up another quest. It waited there, silent and unmoving, like a person not wanting to distract the poor Albert who was in the middle of class. How polite. Except that it made Albert fidget in anticipation, coming up with all sorts of theories and ideas, utterly unable to wait yet forced to do so by the uncaring universe. After class, he almost bolted straight home as fast as he could get there. If he ran fast enough, maybe he could catch the bus and get home a good half an hour earlier than usual. He could taste the feeling of excitement and childish passion that would surely come with the next quest. Which, he felt, was only waiting for him to get home before popping up. But he didn''t. Instead, he chose to simply walk towards the group of friends he usually spent time with as he waited for the next bus to pass. There was no rush, no need to draw unnecessary attention to himself. He needed to learn patience. Self-control. Besides, his friends would surely worry if they saw him run straight home, and it wasn''t like the quest was going to be quick to complete. Going by the previous quest, it would surely take a while and half an hour of extra time wasn''t really going to change much. He still trembled with excitement. It was one thing to rationalize, and another to actually go through with the decision. Suddenly that half hour felt so important. ¡°Albert.¡± Marc said, waving at him. ¡°Marc.¡± Albert replied. ¡°How was class?¡± He shrugged. ¡°Bad? How was yours?¡± ¡°Quite interesting, actually. We learned about the Lagrangian formalism and let me tell you, the guy who came up with it was nuts.¡± ¡°Physicists.¡± Albert heard Colin mutter. ¡°Says the mathematician!¡± Marc shot back. He turned to Albert. ¡°And you¡¯re an Engineer, so you stay out of this.¡± He didn¡¯t react to the obvious provocation, and likewise Colin didn¡¯t react in any visible way. Albert noticed the corners of his mouth curving slightly upwards for a fraction of a second, however, hidden by the hideous mustache that Colin had decided to grow. Sooner or later someone had to break it to him, but it sure as hell was not going to be him. Aubrey could, considering that she was the girl he liked, and probably the only one whose opinion on the matter could ever sway him. But she appeared to take more pleasure in not telling him than anything else. Marc tried another couple times to banter with Colin, and eventually found a hole in his mental defenses and they began to bicker and make fun of each other¡¯s courses. They were all excited about college, Albert thought, motivated and full of hope for a bright future. A long way from how he barely trudged through his own classes. What he needed was a novel way to look at things, he realized. Maybe then his old excitement and curiosity would come back. ¡°Bunch of nerds.¡± Aubrey shook her head in mock disbelief. The four continued with their playful banter for a while, and finally time came for Albert to get going. The others lived in student quarters next to the college, as he was the only one who lived close enough to get back home every day. Even if that meant a good 20 minutes of infernal bus time every day. Maybe if he got a quest he could pass the time better, he thought idly. As if waiting for the clue, the Quest appeared. He immediately turned his gaze inward, and the bus faded from his mind. [New quest]
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Circulating mana had been hard, but not impossible. The video that played afterwards laid down the basics for how to use this new ability to improve the body: its muscles, its bones and its flesh. So that it could perform better than a normal human could without magic. This, in turn, allowed Albert to develop the skill, [Strengthening I] quite rapidly. It wasn''t hard to do, in principle at least. But as he activated it, Albert struggled to feel any difference. He needed to test it in a controlled environment. The afternoon was scorching hot. Not only was summer still refusing to let the city go from its grip, but the little breeze that came from the bay carried the scent of salt and the sticky humidity that reminded him of the days at the beach. This was no beach, however. It was the diminutive garden of his house, squeezed in between the oppressive forms of brutalist apartment blocks, which didn''t even provide any shade whatsoever. His two story house looked tiny in comparison, but he knew very well how envious all the neighbors were of his house. It was something that would have fit right in a wealthy suburb, and not in the almost city centre they were in. It was a relic from the past, well kept but showing signs of aging, encroached by all sides by the tide of modern angles and dull paints from the seventies. He felt watched. The dozens of windows, small balconies and few penthouses that surrounded him were a panopticon from which old ladies, perverted men and playful children all watched each other in search of various types of entertainment. There was no helping it. The interior of the shed was blistering hot. He wasn''t going to stay in there for a second longer than was necessary. Also, but this particular bit he would never even admit to himself, he was a little bit excited at the thought of showing off to some unknown observer. Activating his newly acquired skill, he carried the squat rack outside. Then, he brought the barbell, and the weights. After setting everything up, he started to load the bar. 70kg. His maximum load. Not much by any means, but he was still a beginner. He went under the bar, checked his form, activated the skill once again, and squatted. Activating the skill wasn¡¯t like flipping a switch. It didn''t have the video-game feel of pressing the button and having the effect happen on its own. It was more like performing an action he had done countless times, a choreography he knew by heart, and that he could do with his eyes closed. Still, even the best pianist cannot claim to play the piano without even realizing, and likewise he had to consciously direct the magic and his body in precise ways. It just felt¡­ natural. Ten repetitions. Apart from the slight feeling of emptiness inside that came with the expense of his magical energy, he was fine. His legs were fine, he didn''t even feel out of breath. His form was impeccable. He tried to increase the weight. 90kg. This was something that would be plain impossible for the current him without magic. He felt the skill strain a bit under the weight. The way the magic moved, it didn''t seem all that effective now, and his muscles strained and bulged. His back was damp with sweat by the time he did ten reps, his tank top sticking to his skin. But he did the reps, and the form was, if not perfect, acceptable. By extrapolation, the maximum load for a single rep should be around 140kg now. He did more tests. The conclusion was that, no matter the exercise or the weight, the skill in its current form doubled his strength. And this was just the first ¡®level¡¯ of the skill, as the system stated. The imperfections that he saw, and felt, while using the skill, must be the reason the magic had limits. In fact, he felt that the spell could not accept any more mana than it already did without destabilizing, indicating that there was no correlation between the amount of magic used and the increase in strength. It was all about technique, rather than raw power. Well, he was under no impression that an improved skill would cost less. But maybe it could allow him to regulate the amount of magic he could feed it, so that he could decide how much to increase his strength by feeding the skill more mana. Another couple of tests also told him that not only was he stronger when he used the skill, but it also made his body tougher, to accommodate for the increased strength. More tests were needed.
[Skill proficiency increased.] [Strengthening I] -> [Strengthening II] He was right. He was right! He felt like jumping in the air. By manually, painstakingly, and very, very carefully adjusting the little flaws he noticed in the flow of magic, he managed to get his skill to evolve! And now, he could feed it the same amount of mana as before to get up to a threefold increase in strength. Nice. A week of trial and error well spent. And, apart from that, he felt that for the first time in a long while, something he did was actually engaging him so much that his mother had to physically grab him and drag him away from his ¡®books and study¡¯ to eat. At least he was smart enough to pretend he was studying for college, rather than staring at the wall while he looked at the magic inside of himself. Speaking of looking. [Perception] had evolved too. Its evolution was a bit odd. There were many things to improve about that particular skill, but the improvements felt modular, as opposed to the straightforward progression of the strengthening skill. Albert had decided to focus on perceiving magic, and the skill evolved just as he managed to perceive it more clearly than ever before. But apart from magic, everything else he still perceived as before. This meant that he needed to evolve every aspect of this multifaceted skill one by one. Which was fine by him. More than fine. 03 – The egg There was a race of sentient stone, inhabiting a separate plane of existence from our own. They were the Lithoids, and among them a faction was the most powerful of them all: the Pilgrims. Their only purpose was to eliminate blasphemous presences from anywhere they could reach. Organics, among all, were their worst enemies.
¡°This looks just like the other ones.¡± Samantha Cromwell towered above her colleagues on her high heels, worn with the casual ease one would wear sneakers when going around town. At the worksite, she looked completely at home, her unusual wardrobe choices not bothering her in the slightest. Something that could not be said about the other military men who had been brought to secure the bridge after the event. They were all trained personnel, and each and every one of them was familiar with the consequences of ogling that dangerous woman. The diminutive man beside her was insignificant. He was hunched over a complex set of instruments that were all glass and brass tubes, held together by unseen forces and mechanisms. His face too was hidden beneath a thick layer of glass in what pretended to be a pair of glasses but was more like a face mask. ¡°So, what have we got?¡± she asked. ¡°Space is stable. The astral team is inside the perimeter.¡± he replied, his wrinkled face only slightly relaxing after he put his instruments away. She nodded approvingly. ¡°Good. Timings?¡± ¡°Space destabilized for thirty-three minutes, putting it right in the high end of tier one, as you accurately said earlier.¡± ¡°Even if it¡¯s only a tier one, this bridge will have to stay closed for at least a week. Tell the general to send the repair team right after we¡¯re done here.¡± He nodded. ¡°Anything else out of the ordinary?¡± ¡°Not really, no. Same pattern as the other category ones. The egg is nestled right in the support beam railing. Three suspension cables snapped after the material was removed by the event, but the structure is still safe. No particular signs of residual energy apart from the predicted increase.¡± ¡°One of the last category-ones, then.¡± she said solemnly. ¡°Yes. There will be another, maybe two more before no weak events will spawn anymore.¡± ¡°And the egg?¡± He looked at her, adjusting his glasses. ¡°No movement yet. But the astral team has something.¡± ¡°Okay. You can go now.¡± The man scuttled away, while she approached the military tent set up on the bridge. Inside it was very spacious, creating a single open space that encompassed the whole width of the bridge itself. At the sides, it even included the support beams and cables as well. To one side, a circular section of the metallic structure was missing, like butter carved with a hot knife. At the center, resting on the concave metal, was a black orb. She approached it. The few lines on its surface were a murky white, now and then glowing with a golden light almost imperceptible to the naked eye. Her eyes could see it well, however, but she only gave the whole item a passing glance. The small circle of white lab coats surrounding the egg parted. A single uniform stepped away from it, and saluted. Upon noticing who had just entered the tent, his gait, usually full of confidence and arrogance, became more subdued. His face contorted for a fraction of a second, all the time it took for him to understand a couple very important things about the woman in front of him. Samantha studied him in the fraction of the second he took to salute. She knew that, like with the small and frail-looking SpaceOps, there was more to this man than his looks alone suggested. On the outside, he was the muscular, trimmed, arrogant army grunt. On the inside, his mind held a power that few in the whole world could claim to be able to beat. ¡°PsyOps? Report.¡± she commanded. ¡°SpaceOps gave me the quick rundown, he says there¡¯s something you have for me.¡± ¡°Sir, our readings of the astral show movement. Something¡­ massive is waiting on the other end. Perhaps even moving our way.¡± ¡°We all knew something was coming. All these events, and the eggs¡­ have you managed to crack the meaning of the eggs?¡± He shook his head. ¡°It can¡¯t be another Holy War, can it?¡± she asked. ¡°Sir, the Holy Wars are just a rumor.¡± ¡°A rumor¡­¡± she muttered. Her head snapped towards him. ¡°What do you know about Pilgrims?¡± He shrank. ¡°Not much, admittedly. But the rumor is that they were responsible for the Dark Ages.¡± ¡°Exactly. But it¡¯s not a rumor. It¡¯s the truth.¡±
¡°Mom! I¡¯m home!¡± Albert threw his backpack on the sofa and, upon hearing no response to his greeting, moved around the house in search of his mother. Being a single child of a single mother, living in a three-story house with as many rooms as his house did meant that more often than not the house seemed erroneously empty when it was, in fact, not. But this time it seemed like it was indeed empty, as a thorough search of the rooms and of the garden yielded no results, even while using [Perception].The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Frowning a bit, against his better judgement that screamed at him to go do some magic, Albert decided to laze around until his mother was back. He plopped on the sofa next to the backpack and turned on the television. ¡°It¡¯s a tragedy.¡± A reporter said. Behind him, the base of the looming red bridge was hidden from view by military tents and a dozen armed men in uniform. ¡°The military have cut off the area while a team of engineers assesses the damage. The official reports indicate that there were five cars involved in the accident, and two people confirmed dead.¡± Albert had wondered why the traffic was completely out of control today, clogging the main five-lane road alongside which he walked every day on his way back from college. This was it, the unexpected event that threw a wrench in the delicate workings of city-planning and traffic. He didn¡¯t know what was the actual event that happened on the bridge, that part of the news report had happened before he turned on his television, but in truth he found that he didn¡¯t care much about its nature. It was always something bad and depressing. At least he knew why his mother was not home. She worked in the other side of town and was bound to be stuck in traffic for a while before this whole situation was sorted out. He turned off the television. He was a bit hungry, and since waiting for his mother was not an option, he went to raid the fridge of all it could offer. While he ate thoughts gathered in his mind, thoughts about the nature of the system that had come to take him as its user, about who else might have it and, above all, about how to use it more effectively. He found that he could not avoid thinking about magic, and for good reason. Still, he needed to avoid becoming obsessed about it. Or at least this sounded like the better approach to the matter. He didn¡¯t like it, though. The rational approach. Humans were only rational insofar as rationality served their inner emotions well, and when it didn¡¯t they discarded it. Why would he ever want to limit his time spent studying magic? It was still early in the semester; he could worry later about studying for his classes. He was not sacrificing time he could spend with his friends. He was not skipping meals or workouts. Then, what was the problem? Once his mind was set that there was no problem, he decided that he wanted something new to do with magic. Namely, he wanted another quest to expand his magical toolbox. Having only [Perception] and [Strengthening] didn¡¯t make for a good mage, after all. [New quest: Projection.] Finally, some excitement. Running to his bedroom, he immediately set to work on experimenting with magic and how to make it appear outside his body. It was a completely different task than the previous two, both of which involved manipulating something that was internal and not external. It was refreshing, in a way, although the novelty ran out pretty quickly when Albert realized that he had no idea how to make magic leave his body to materialize in the real world. As usual, a hurdle that seemed impossible to overcome. These hurdles were of the frustrating kind, because like those images that you can¡¯t un-see once you have seen them, they all seem very obvious in hindsight. But, much like those images, until the obvious could be understood they looked completely nonsensical and cryptic. Such was the nature of magic, or the nature of his magic at least. As counterintuitive as it gets, and then completely natural once he understood it. It was dark outside when the sudden noise of keys scraping against the keyhole, in search of the perfect alignment so that they could slip inside and unlock the door, shook Albert out of his contemplative concentration state. He was covered in sweat, he realized, completely drenched. Had he been concentrating that hard? It was certainly a first. Never before had he felt such a flow state come to him, especially so easily as to not even realize it. Before his mother could see him like this, he threw on some gym pants and a tank top and flew down the stairs. ¡°Hi mom.¡± He said. ¡°Hey sweetie. Sorry for coming home so late! There was just so much traffic, I was barely moving. Are you hungry? You haven¡¯t waited for me to come back to cook for you, have you?¡± Albert smiled. His mother still saw him as the little kid he had been years ago. ¡°Of course not, mom. I cooked my own lunch, and then dinner too, you know? I made an extra portion for you; you can heat it up. It¡¯s in the fridge.¡± His mother, watching him with her usual stern expression but with unusually wide eyes,was surprised. She was tall, even more so in her high heels. Part of the dress code for the job, she always said when Albert asked her if she needed them, tall as she was. She undid her ponytail. Her dark hair was held so tightly that when the rubber band came off, it exploded in a shower of darkness on her shoulders. ¡°Really?!¡± She said, taking off her heels and throwing them to their designated space under the drawer. They landed upright, and perfectly parallel. A skill Albert could only dream of having, system or no system. ¡°Yep. I¡¯m a big boy, you know? Now I need to shower though¡­ I¡­ I have been working out while you were locked in traffic, getting no physical movement.¡± ¡°Dah,¡± she groaned. ¡°What do you know, I don¡¯t need to move. Or are you saying I¡¯m fat?¡± ¡°No, no, no. I would never!¡± Albert said, bolting for the other room. When he was at the door, he looked back so that he could stick out his tongue to her, but his mother was already in the kitchen, heating up her meal. The TV was on, and it was broadcasting updates on the situation at the bridge. Traffic was going to be problematic for the whole week, the newscaster said before Albert was too far away to hear the distinct words. An idea came to his mind. What if he tried to enhance his hearing with magic? Easier said than done, because nothing happened when he tried. But he was not one to let go of his lofty goals so quickly, especially when it came to magic. It would be correct to say only when it came to magic, but Albert would never admit that fact about himself. Thus, he spent the whole shower ¨C which ended up lasting well over forty minutes ¨C trying to get his hearing to improve via magical means. He didn¡¯t even stop to wonder why his mother had not come to pull him out of the shower by force, lecturing him about saving money and not wasting perfectly good water just so he could have his fun in the shower. The thought didn¡¯t even cross his mind until much later, when he was finally out and looked at the time. What made him eventually leave the water was a notification. [Skill proficiency increased.] It worked! And now, he could¡ª ¡°What?¡± his mother¡¯s voice in the other room was muffled, but very much audible. There was also the noise of the television, but it was just music. ¡°Another? Is it still safe¡ª¡± He couldn¡¯t make out the rest of the words, because the television was now too loud for him to extricate his mother¡¯s words from the ones of the ad. But still, this was a huge improvement, because he couldn¡¯t even hear his mother¡¯s voice before activating the skill. Now he only needed to figure out a way to complete the quest that he had, which was to cast magic outside of his body. But first, he had to get dressed. ¡°They called me from work, sweetie.¡± Albert found his mother already dressed in her suit, by the door. ¡°They said it¡¯s an emergency and they need us to come back immediately! I¡¯m sorry but I need to go.¡± As she left, Albert was left wondering. What on Earth could have happened that they needed an accountant in the dead of night? Had some rich eastern oil prince just landed their private jet and asked for a skyscraper on sale? Shrugging, Albert went up to his room. Sleep came surprisingly easy, the sounds of the world soft and gentle. Like they were far away, and all was quiet. The world was surprisingly silent when he was not using the skill to enhance his perception. 04 – Three types of magic Albert had come to think, in a catastrophically erroneous manner, that whatever magic he acquired via a skill video was completely instinctive and could be used on a whim. This was not, however, the case and the problem reared its ugly head right when he was in a pinch and needed magic the most. It happened during his return trip home, following a night out with his friends. He avoided touching upon the matter of magic with them, for now, at least until he had enough to show them to prove that he actually had magic. This was because while his [Strengthening] skill was at level 2 and allowed him to wield superhuman strength, as far as magic went it was a bit lackluster. [Perception] was even worse since it really was nothing to show. Still, he felt pretty good about his magic. The world was his oyster and soon he would have to make some decisions, which meant that the time he could spend in relative ease and bliss was fleeting and he needed to make the most out of it. That was the mood he was in during his walk back home, a mood which probably affected the way he handled the situation that he was presented with and in a way, even caused it. The night was dark. He had decided to take a shortcut home that led him through some questionable back alleys nestled between the tall buildings and old houses that still stood between the new and shiny skyscrapers. He felt safe, confident that whatever happened he could deal with it. He was, after all, able to deliver a thrice strengthened punch to whichever poor soul decided to mug him. It was a delusion of grandeur. He groaned, lifting his shirt up to inspect the extent of his bruises. His encounter with said mugger left him limping and only by a streak of luck not bleeding. It turns out that, when slightly inebriated and flooded with the adrenaline of risk, magic was not so easy to summon as he thought. It didn¡¯t come as naturally as breathing, although he had to concede that not even his breathing was all that natural in the state of initially mild and later increasingly rising panic he was in when he was surrounded by the three tall, hooded men. He was now walletless and hurting. ¡°Ack!¡± Even removing his shirt meant pain. [New quest: Magical soothing.] Finally, some help from the ever-watchful, rarely-helpful system. Too bad that concentrating on the task while staring at his bruises, shirtless, in the ground floor bathroom with the door wide open meant that when his mother returned home not only did he not hear her come in, but she immediately noticed that something was wrong. ¡°Oh, honey!¡± she cried out, rushing to him. She almost embraced him but stopped herself just shy of touching him. The action still made him recoil in fear of the incoming pain, which in turn made the pain flare from his battered flesh. ¡°I¡¯m fine mom. Very lucky to be alive, but fine.¡± Albert groaned. ¡°What happened to you? You¡¯re limping, and bruised all over! Here, press the ice on your knee or it will swell.¡± Sighing inwardly, Albert began to recount the encounter he had with the three thugs. He half expected, or rather he was 99% sure that a lecture was going to follow as soon as he was done talking. Perhaps even during the part where he described how he tried to escape ¨C he actually wanted to fight back and his magic failed him, but he retconned the story ¨C and got hurt in the process. However, much to his surprise and confusion, none of what he expected happened. No lecture. No anger. What came over his mother was a cold gaze of hatred and contempt which, fortunately, was not directed at Albert. He felt that if it ever did, he could faint. His mother was already tall, and she was still wearing her high heels, however, the way she towered over him like a giant was not a product of these factors. The rest of the world seemed to recede under the stern gaze of her fiery eyes, glinting with a sinister light. Just as it came, it went. It was over in a matter of moments, which made him question if what he saw was even real. He knew it was, but it felt like a mirage. Now his mother was back as she usually was, and she bent over to nurse his wounds and take away his dirtied clothes, all the while asking him questions about his wallet and money and the documents. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, sweetie. I¡¯ll go to the police first thing tomorrow. Actually, you will need to come with me to get your credit cards deactivated.¡± He nodded. This was going to be a long and sleepless night, dreading the upcoming day. Going to the police and then the bank meant talking to many strangers who held positions of authority, which in turn meant that whether he wanted or not his brain was going to cycle over countless iterations of whatever conversation he was going to have with them tomorrow in order to go there as prepared as possible. He hated that about himself. And he hated that no matter how much he thought about preparing for the conversations, they never went the way he predicted they would go, which only made his obsession worsen. Luckily, he had something to distract himself with. Two different quests from the system, involving experimenting with magic! The only thing, he found, that managed to still his mind and let him rest while he focused on it.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. *** [Quest: Magical soothing complete.] ¡°Healing comes in different ways.¡± The other Albert in the screen said. ¡°There¡¯s the easy way and the hard way. Today we will focus on the easy one, because not only is it the only one you can have any chance of learning this early in your path to magic, but it¡¯s also the cheapest and the hardest one to mess up. Don¡¯t blame me for not teaching you the other one yet, I know you want to learn it, but if you mess that up¡­ well¡­ You have seen on yourself what the consequences are when one is too cocky. Consider the beating up a warning, and learn from it. Back to the topic of healing. It works like this: you use magic to boost your natural healing. That¡¯s it! What would heal in a matter of days now only takes a few hours! Zero risk of messing up because it¡¯s your body that¡¯s doing the work, using its own cells and an immune system that evolved over billions of years. You can see the obvious limitations of this, no need for me to spell them out. But still, for wounds like you have, this is more than enough. Let¡¯s get started! Let¡¯s begin with trying to direct some of the mana to the cells in the area around the wound, and we will work up from there.¡± ¡­ [Skill acquired: Healing I] *** ¡°You¡¯re not limping anymore! That¡¯s great.¡± ¡°Yeah mom.¡± Albert said. They had parked as close as possible to the police station, which meant spending hours in traffic due to the bridge being closed, but it was still some distance away from the car and they had to walk. ¡°I kept the ice on it all night.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good.¡± She smiled sweetly. ¡°Finally, you do things as I tell you. It¡¯s almost unreal!¡± Albert shook his head. She didn¡¯t know, of course. Ice would have never helped, that¡¯s why he never used it before. There was a bizarre scene at the police station. Apparently, during the night the three muggers who beat Albert up got into a fight with someone, and ended up thrown into a trash can. When the police got there, they took them in and found a wallet with documents that didn¡¯t match any of the three. As they were carried off to the hospital, sporting some rather gruesome wounds according to the police official, the wallet was left at the station. It was Albert¡¯s wallet. ¡°You need to stick to the main road at night.¡± Finally, mother¡¯s lecture came while they were stuck in traffic on their way home. ¡°The city can be dangerous. You might think you¡¯re so strong with all the gym stuff that you do, but as you can see¡ª¡± ¡°Yeah, mom. I know.¡± He said in a low voice. It stung to be told this by his mother, especially with all she didn¡¯t know. ¡°I¡¯ll be more careful. Changing subject: shouldn¡¯t you be at work?¡± ¡°I took the day off.¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t you say that they were so busy they needed you to come in during the night?¡± Mother scoffed, like she didn¡¯t believe what she heard. ¡°You really think work is more important than you?¡± *** It was after much trial and error that Albert finally succeeded. His current focus was completing the quest that asked him to manifest mana in the world, and he finally was staring at it. A small iridescent thing, shining in his hand. Like a crystal. [Quest: Projection complete.] The familiar sight of the holographic, partially see-through screen greeted Albert. In it, the other Albert was dressed in different robes than usual, and he was standing next to a whiteboard. He was holding a totally out of place black marker in his hand, that did not fit his whole sorcerer aesthetic in the slightest. What¡¯s more, he seemed very aware and amused about it. ¡°I know you very well,¡± said the Albert in the video, eerily similar in his mannerism yet different, resulting in that uncanny valley kind of feeling that made Albert uncomfortable. ¡°Firm believer in subject-object duality. We are going to have to break the shackles of this illusion if you want to progress in the path of magic.¡± He paused. ¡°How do I know, you ask? Look at me, I¡¯m you!¡± ¡°In any case, there is no need to rush these things now. This is not a skill video, it¡¯s a presentation video that precedes the handing out of Quests by the System. It¡¯s a purely theoretical lesson. Listen well: There are three types of magic, as far as you are concerned. I know what you¡¯re thinking, what about other people, other mages et cetera et cetera. That¡¯s irrelevant. We are talking about you, here. You surely have noticed that you can move magic around by yourself, without a skill. You have also noticed that you can activate skills to do things, which make the whole process much easier. In theory you could do the same stuff without a skill, by purely controlling the mana with your mind, and have the same results. However, you have already managed to fail to use magic even with the help of a skill, so I wouldn¡¯t try to do magic without just yet. That¡¯s something even I sometimes struggle with. Back to the three types. The first type is hard skills. You activate the skill, concentrate a bit, stuff happens. The three skills you have are all hard skills, for instance. Then there¡¯s passive skills. They are always active, without you thinking about them and without using any mana. Some of them will use mana when some conditions trigger a special activation, so keep that in mind. Then there¡¯s freehand magic. That¡¯s the skill-less kind. Even though it¡¯s the most versatile, it¡¯s also the most volatile. You must have realized that before a skill is created, you need to perform freehand magic at least once. That¡¯s why I made the skill videos, to guide you through the steps. You have also learned that in order to upgrade a skill, you need to perform the freehand version first. What this means, is that you can create any skill you want, provided you figure out how to freehand it first. After that, it''s best to rely on just using the skill. The whole reason why the system exists is to make magic more reliable without any drawbacks, after all! And yes. This also means that with time, skill videos will become more and more scarce. Only helping you with things you cannot figure out on your own. But you can do it, I believe in you! Cheers.¡± The video window disappeared. [New quest: Videoless.] 05 – Beyond superstition The BSA-operated satellite hovering in a geostationary orbit above Temalas City was like an all-seeing panopticon, its lenses particularly crafted in a way that allowed them to spot Events before they could fully form. The technology was classified, but it came as no surprise to anyone who knew what the satellite did that there was magic involved. Its tireless glass eye spied and observed the surface of the earth every hour of every day, ready and watchful. Always. When the surge of energy, highly indicative of an incursion event forming, happened the satellite immediately picked up on it, zeroing on its position with its full suite of sensor arrays. There was a man in a room, hidden somewhere underground. It could have been close to the city, or on the other side on the planet. Not even he knew. He was always attentive, staring at a number of screens that parsed the data coming from the satellite and from a number of other sources. They showed the geography of the whole state, with a particular focus on Temalas City. The four-million people urban center had been the epicenter of the astral activity in the last two months, and warranted special attention. The screen beeped red. The man stared at the dot in the map for but a moment before he quickly scrambled in search of the little red analogic phone at the center of his desk, and picked it up. There was only one number that could be dialed. ¡°Sir, we have an event forming in the bay area.¡± On the other end of the phone was none other than Samantha Cromwell. ¡°How long has it been going on?¡± She asked. The soldier at the phone with her could hear some kind of music playing on her end, and a beating noise. Then a hiss. It was around dinner time, he realized, so she must be at a restaurant. No doubt with other military heads. ¡°3 minutes, 44 seconds so far. We are monitoring it.¡± He said. ¡°They are spreading. But the satellite caught this one early. Call SpaceOps, have him teleport the astral team immediately. Cordon off the area. I want nobody getting in, or even close to the event. Get PsyOps on the site too with the second trip, have him do a scan of whoever saw the event and wipe them.¡± Samantha Cromwell must have walked away from the dinner, because her side of the line had gotten pretty silent as she barked the orders. ¡°Understood. Shall I send SpaceOps to pick you up as well?¡± ¡°No. Only send him if the event reaches 40 minutes without losing strength or threatens to become Tier 2. I will be at the Shed.¡± Barely 15 minutes and 3 seconds later, SpaceOps appeared in the shed. He looked around for a brief second, taking a glimpse of the strange space filled with tools and¡ª ¡°Report.¡± ¡°Yes, sir. The space is behaving abnormally. The gathering of energy has accelerated and is out of known bounds. If this keeps up, it will break through to Tier 2 in 10 minutes.¡± Samantha shook her head. ¡°Take me there.¡± *** There was a test that begged for execution, if anything to prove whether a theory that Albert had was right or not. It was a simple thing of manifesting some magic in the real world and seeing whether people reacted to it or not. To him, even without activating [Perception], magic was always visible. But he didn¡¯t know if it was his magic that was visible, or magic in general, because if the latter was true then the world was a bit too mundane and lacking in interesting features for his tastes. It would mean that he was the only magic user in the whole town, a thought that both disturbed him and kind of reassured him. Squiggly lines and sources of light populated his vision when he used perception to scout for mana, but Albert quickly realized that what was he was seeing was the ambient latent magic. It was only present in a radius of only a few meters around him and, when he used his will on it, it moved and responded to his commands. Which meant that he had both internal reserved and the environment to draw upon whenever he wanted to cast spells. But it also meant that his question was still unanswered. Was there other magic in the world, and could other people see it? He decided to try but his mother had left early, and he was finishing his lunch alone. He had classes in the afternoon too, and while he could have performed the experiment during class he felt particularly self-conscious about it when he thought about performing in the middle of a crowd of a hundred undergraduate engineers. He painstakingly waited until the end of the last class. ¡°Hey Al!¡± Marc waved at him from the other side of the crosswalk. He was alone. ¡°Hey!¡± Albert replied and joined him as soon as the traffic light became green. It was a perfect opportunity to attempt to perform his experiment. While he crossed the street he began to concentrate and saw a small pinprick of magic materialize in the palm of his hand. It looked like a luminous drop of water, suspended in the air, emitting a faint glow. Looking up, he studied his friend¡¯s face, seeing no reaction to the feat that had taken him two full days to do for the first time.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Marc asked candidly. ¡°What¡¯s with your hand?¡± The thing was like a prince Rupert¡¯s drop, enticing and entrancing in its beauty. But Albert still didn¡¯t know whether Marc could see it or not. ¡°Can¡¯t you see it? It¡¯s right here.¡± ¡°See what? Your hand is empty. Are you pulling a prank on me?¡± This confirmed it. You need [Perception] to perceive magic. ¡°Nothing, nothing.¡± Albert said. Marc was not convinced, but luckily he did not press the issue. The two began to walk together, with Marc having unilaterally decided that they were going to study together at a coffee shop he liked to hang out at. Albert wanted to complain, and for a moment entertained the idea of finding a way to extricate himself from the task so that he could go home and do magic. But Marc wasn¡¯t having it. ¡°You haven¡¯t been studying as of late, have you?¡± he asked. ¡°I¡­ uh¡­ I did study.¡± Marc gave him a perplexed look. ¡°Fine. Let¡¯s go.¡± Albert eventually withered under the inquisitive gaze. ¡°Good.¡± Marc said as they started walking together. Traffic was as bad as usual in this part of town. The military still had not opened the bridge back up to traffic, and the whole explanation that the cables had snapped and they were simply doing some tests to make sure there was no danger of collapse was sounding more and more suspicious by the day. ¡°Why would the military ever be involved in stuff like that?¡± Albert wondered out loud. ¡°They should call in some civil engineers, not the damn military!¡± ¡°Perhaps there¡¯s something else going on. I heard that they don¡¯t let anybody even near that bridge, and that nobody has been seen entering or leaving the area ever since the perimeter was sealed three days ago.¡± Marc said. ¡°Ah, see¡­ if I was one of those conspiracy theorists, I would say that there¡¯s something weird going on there.¡± Albert said. ¡°But I don¡¯t know. I don¡¯t think that humans are competent enough to actually be able to keep things secret like that.¡± ¡°Then what? You said it yourself. Why would they ever call the army to deal with an old bridge showing signs of age?¡± Albert sighed. ¡°So you believe there¡¯s something else going on?¡± Marc puffed out his chest. ¡°I didn¡¯t say that. I only know what I read. And the news isn¡¯t all that good.¡± ¡°Read where?¡± Albert scoffed. ¡°On 4chan?¡± ¡°¡­I have also read that they closed off a whole section of the bay as well. This morning, in fact.¡± Albert pushed the glass door of the caf¨¦, letting the smell of coffee and artificially humidified hot air hit his face. It was a stark contrast to the cold wind of the capricious September climate outside, and from the unpleasant stench of cars and asphalt. ¡°This morning you say?¡± Marc nodded. ¡°Well,¡± Albert said. ¡°I guess we¡¯ll see what happens.¡± *** He didn¡¯t show it while he was with his friend, but the news Marc told him shook Albert more than a fair bit. The timing was surely interesting, with these events gaining traction right about the time when he suddenly woke up with a system and with access to magic. In fact, even though he never gave the thought much conscious processing power, the whole revelation that magic was a thing had been destabilizing much of what Albert thought true about the world. Much of it happened at an unconscious level, and whenever the thought emerged he tried to suppress it, but it was getting more and more difficult to deny the truth. The implications were not without weight. Things were not as they seemed. Which also put a notable dent in Albert¡¯s previously unshaking belief in hard science and objective truth. Because it was clear that while there was more to the world, these extra bits of information were not only completely alien and rested outside of anything even remotely true about physics, but they also managed to hide themselves so well as to not ever come up anywhere he could look prior to his awakening into magic. Now, both claims were bold claims. And Albert knew it. Perhaps there was mention of magic and supernatural events out there in the world, but he always dismissed it as bogus and fake and new age bullshittery. And perhaps this magic of his was not at all in conflict with the laws of physics, it was just that he didn¡¯t have the whole picture. Quantum mechanics could offer a way out, if he only had time to study it. It was in the third-year curriculum, so he could always procrastinate until then. Back to the issue. The military: they were onto something. But did he want to investigate, to get involved? His mind immediately replied with a firm no. It made no sense, it was risky and he was definitely ill-equipped for it. He remembered how he was utterly powerless even against three street thugs. For now, life could go on as usual. Classes, going out with friends, and secretly cultivating magic without anyone noticing. At least until he was sure he could deal with the consequences of using it in the open. Yes, he was a coward. No, he didn¡¯t feel bad about it. What was he supposed to do, walk up to the military men at the bridge and demand to be let in? Mother was not home, as usual. But she texted, saying she was going to come home for dinner and to wait for her. This left Albert with a couple of hours of free time, which he could spend experimenting with magic. With the studies done for the day, courtesy of Marc, he didn¡¯t even feel guilty about it. There was a quest waiting. Enticing him with a very promising reward. ¡°Okay¡­ saying it helps with visualization. Coalesce! Coalesce into fire, the burning, the chemicals! Oxidation of combustibles¡­¡± It was not the first time he tried to complete the quest, of course, which meant that resorting to ever stranger methods of going about it was feeling increasingly less embarrassing. Nothing. ¡°Hmm. Perhaps I am going at it the wrong way. This is magic after all. Let¡¯s strip away the non-essentials, leave just the burning.¡± Albert muttered to himself, all sense of shame lost. In moments like these, what would later come to be called by his doppelganger as the illusion of his ego was already absent, and all the self-awareness that came with it, in the form of shame, was also nonexistent. ¡°Rearrange, magic. Burning, the transformation of matter, the heat!¡± Nothing. ¡°Damn. What gives? What¡¯s a fireball if not all this? Let¡¯s try¡­ heat, power, momentum, mass, energy!¡± The room suddenly lit up to day, and the superheated air blasted the door open and almost shattered the windows. There was barely a moment of grateful contemplation before the smell of burning reached Albert¡¯s nostrils, and panic set in. Read the first volume on Amazon and KU NOW!!! Hi everyone! The first volume is finally ready and out on Amazon! It''s my first ever professional book release, and I''m proud of all the work I''ve done to get here. It hasn''t been easy, but I learned a lot! Here''s the link: https://a.co/d/eYbOpq4 Whether you read the novel here already, or didn''t get the chance to before I stubbed, you must click on the link! If you read the book, leave some stars to let them amazon people know you loved the book. If you didn''t... well, that the book''s new home, go read it there!
Not everything is sunshine and rainbows when it comes to magic, not when an unknown enemy is invading Earth, and the organizations in charge of protecting humanity are corrupt, bureaucratic and maybe even traitorous. Albert is a college student with a wandering mind, but when he receives the [System] and a quest, he also receives purpose: to desperately fight back. But with this system, he must earn power the hard way. Every skill, every piece of magic, every asset and every ally, will be earned through sweat and hard work.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Can he stop the invasion, and prevent the Apocalypse?
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