Chapter 3

 

    As I plunged into the frothing sea of chaos, I felt like I was falling. I was buffeted by waves of vertigo. My mind was set like stone, and as soon as I entered the churning chaos, I began to feel my mind pull at the forms of magic that I had decided upon. Deep arcane understanding of the elements blossomed in my mind. 

 

The earth and all of its composite forms. The intricate crystalline matrices of metal. The understanding of fire and reducing it to its base elemental component of energy. The transfer of energy propelling atomic states to higher and lower energy states. 

 

The tender caresses of water and the buffeting gales of wind merged into my being. The deep intricacies of DNA, RNA, and cellular structures. The membranes that made up plants and animals blossomed into a kind of biological sorcery. 

 

Kinetic force, almost in and of itself a fundamental energy of the universe. The potential energy and the transference thereof. Finally, the profound and deep understanding of arcane manna sorcery. The knowledge intricately wove itself in between all of the other understandings I had gathered. Arcane mana sorcery allowed for unseen linkages between each element to form. The possible spells and enchantments that could be created from these connections increased significantly. 

 

The knowledge cemented itself in my mind. I could feel that my time was coming to an end. Within the chaos, I quickly pulled deeply on the last two things I knew that I would need if I was going to arrive on any new planet. Language and writing in all of its wonderful contortions. The knowledge gently caressed every single one of my understandings, expanding my vocabulary and the language processing center of my incorporeal brain.

 

    As I felt the deep mysteries and understandings root themselves in my mind, I felt myself fading. Sleeping. My sense of self darkened, and I felt myself fade into the deep black oblivion of sleep. At the last moment, a strong and powerful force racketed me like a tennis ball. It sent me careening off in a new direction. I heard a soft feminine voice say, "Please help them! They are my daughters of love! Find them, find them. Please help them! I will speak to you soon." 

 

I blacked out.

 

    As my consciousness reformed and I could feel tethered once again to a body. I let out a long and whimpered groan. The agony and splitting headache that permeated my mind and body sent racking waves of nausea through me. I rolled onto my left side and tried to vomit. But to my profound horror, I had nothing in my stomach to empty. I lay whimpering on the ground as the blinding pain that filled my body slowly began to subside. Like a dimmer switch on a light being turned down, until finally, I had some semblance of coherence.

 

    "Oh boy, that hurt. I guess all those books when they talked about the groaning and pain of interdimensional travel weren't too exaggerated. Maybe they were onto something." I said out loud as I sat up. 

 

    "Now, where am I? What was that voice at the end? It must have been a feminine god or a goddess. Best not make assumptions if a divine is involved." My eyes finally came fully into focus, and I was staring out of a small bluff? Cave? Overhang, yes, an overhang. 

 

    The overhang was maybe ten feet deep and seven feet tall and gave some semblance of protection from the elements. Though the front was nearly thirty feet long. The opening was set on the part of a small hill and looked down onto a small forest. The trees were pine, or what I assumed to be pine. They looked near enough to the tall, needily trees. 

 

    As I sat cross-legged on the ground, moving a few stones from underneath my ass to get more comfortable, I said, "First things first, check to see if I'm in a game-like world. Status." I said the last while focusing inward on who I was and trying to sort of vomit it up into the world.

    

    And wouldn't you know it; as soon as I finished uttering the phrase, a semitransparent window popped up about the size of a tablet from back on earth. I could not describe its color, as it had none, yet it was all of the colors at the same time. It was like it was real, yet was not; a projection onto the world, from the world. The knowledge it gave off had the intrinsic feeling of being right and true.

 

Individual Statistical Analyses.

 

Name: Eric Grayson.

Race: Human.

Level: 0. Experience to next level; zero out of 10.

 

Health: 100 percent.

Mana capacity: 100.

Mana regeneration: Error…Max [11.5 mana per second.] 

 

Attributes: 4 per level. 

Strength: 10.

Body: 10.

Speed: 10. 

Dexterity: 10.

Mana capacity: 10.

Mana regeneration: 10.

Charisma: 10.

 

Affinities:

Arcane mana manipulation: 100 percent.

Earth: 100 percent.

Fire: 100 percent.

Air: 50 percent.

Water: 50 percent.

Life: 85 percent.

Death: 15 percent.

Light: 85 percent.

Shadow: 75 percent.

Space-time: 25 percent.

Summoning: 25 percent.

 

 

Abilities: 1 per level.

 

Skills: 1 per level.

 

Spells: 1 per level.

 

    "Ok, looks like I'm in a world with a quantized system, and the magics I was able to gather from that place translated over as affinities," I said to myself. "Now, instead of just getting up and running off, Eric, let's see if I can figure out this mana. Odd that I have an error in my mana regeneration; it probably means it's really high or something. I hope it is high."

 

    I held out my right hand and focused on my body. I felt the mana coursing through me and understood it intuitively. The knowledge was simply there, like a long-forgotten memory. This was the high level of my mana manipulation at work; it made using the mana in my body second nature to me. The formation of my mana core and mana channels had been the source of my previous pain.

 

    Holding my right hand out, I focused on what I thought I wanted in a simple spell. 'Create a small candle flame,' I thought over and over as I pushed on my mana internally. Finally, I was rewarded with a small candle flame appearing just above my palm, along with a soft chime in the back of my head and a notification.

 

    [You have learned the spell: Candle flame; base cost: error… 0.1 mana per minute. Level 1.]  

 

    "Great," I said as I checked my stats screen to see if the spell showed up. "Well, with that confirmed, this won't be too bad; at least I can teach myself spells." 

 

The candle flame was barely hot, and by adjusting my focus, I could control the temperature. The flame could go from a barely hot, dull orange to a scorching white-hot flame. The flame from as far as I could tell still only took .1 mana to produce, even at its hottest.

 

    "Fuck yeah, magic. Ok, now for the other elements and some more useful spells." I said as I extinguished the flame and pumped my fist.

 

    Focusing on the earth around my I pulled on the surrounding granite-like stone. Projecting my mana out, I felt the rock liquify then reform on the shape I wanted. At the same time, another notification appeared along with the voice.

 

    [You have learned the spell: Stone spike: Base cost: Error… .1 mana per inch of spike. Level 1.]

 

 

    Next, I examined my body and focused on seeing all of its internal workings. Then a three-dimensional, fully graphic mental image formed in my mind's eye. I received the same soft whispering voice and notification. 

 

[You have learned the spell: Analyze body: base cost: 3 mana a second. Level 1.]

 

    This spell did not have an error tag to it. I looked over my states again. The spell was associated with the life magic affinity. That was an Affinity I did not have a one hundred percent in. "I'll have to try a few more spell types, but I think the errors are focused around the Affinities with one hundred percent," I said, moving on to my next spell.

 

    Looking over my body, I could tell traveling through the dimensions had left me in remarkably good shape; wanting to keep it that way, it was definitely time for a healing spell. I found a sharp stone on the floor and cut my forearm. Not deeply, but enough to draw blood. I focused on the area with my new internal view and could see where the cellular structures had been damaged; and how the little pieces of me were trying franticly to fix the small wound. I pushed my mana to the area and told it to heal. Healing washed through the area as a warm, tingling sensation. The soft voice in my mind said along with the notification.

 

[You have learned the spell: Focused healing: Base cost: 7.5 mana per second. Level 1.] 

 

    "Ok, now for some true attack spells. Let's see here…." I said as I stood trailing off. 

 

I don't want to draw too much attention to myself right now, but I need to do this. I walked to the edge of the overhang and stepped out into the sunlight.

 

The edge of the woods was about fifty or so yards down a gentle slope. I focused on a tree, and with a push of mana through the earth, I poured 7.2 mana into the spell stone spike. A stone spike the size of a person lanced out from the ground like a darting spear. It gouged out a quarter of the trunk. 

 

CRACK!

 

    "Oops. Well shit." I said. "Suppose there's no use for stealth now."

 

    The stone spike had only cost 8 mana, slightly more than I initially invested, but the extra had been put towards speeding the spell up and the distance it manifested away from me. 'looks like fire and earth are going to be my best elements, though life, shadow, light, air, and water aren't far behind.' 

 

Next, I wanted to try one of my lower affinities. So, I chose wind which was at fifty percent. I focused the mana on the palm of my hand-building a construct of sorts. It was three blades that rotated around a center point. The time and focus were much greater than it had been for fire and earth. Those elements had almost seemed to happen instantly compared to the battle of wills I was having with the wind element. Finally, the spell clicked into place. As the whirling blades leaped from my hands towards the trees, I received a notification announced in the same voice. 

 

[You have learned the spell: Shuriken wrath: Base cost: 42.5 mana. Level 1.]

 

The spell was underwhelming. It barely made it to the trees, and when it did hit, it left a small scratch. I was not impressed. Thought the spell had revealed a great deal about the affinities. It looked like affinities played a major role in the mana cost for spells and how hard it was to learn new spells. 

 

I raised my hand again and began casting the spell every four seconds. I did this for ten minutes. Unleashing one hundred and fifty of the weak whirley blades of death. Until I got the notification I was hoping for.

 

[Shuriken's wrath has reached level two.]

 

There was no way to see the progress of the spell. The next level notification was the only marker. I had a feeling that affinity played a part in leveling as well. First to test the changes in the spell, though.

 

I cast the Shuriken's wrath spell. This time I noticed that I could invest the same base cost over, for a total of eighty-five mana. It took a hair's breadth longer but not much. When I let the spell go, two of the large, three-bladed, whirley death spinners were released. Their effect was far more devastating. They were more solid-looking and proved it when they tore into the tree; they had barely scratched before.

 

I had one last experiment to try. I called up the same spell, but this time as I infused my mana, I focused on making as many small spinning blades as possible. Within a few seconds, I had reached eighty-five mana; holding my hand out, I released the spell.

 

Hundreds of small shurikens were released in a moment from my hand in a wide cone. They blasted into the forest, ripping limbs from trees and carving small but deep rents in the trees. The front of the forest looked like it had gone through a shredder. 

 

"Holy…Fuuuuck. Well, that's something." I said lamely, looking at the devastation. "I can't leave a perfectly wonderful area of forest destroyed." 

 

    I had not intended the spell to work so efficiently; I thought with the size would come a power reduction. Apparently not. It did confirm, though, that my will and thoughts had a significant impact on the spell. I was tempted to try a fireball. I really, really wanted to. But as Smoky the Bear said, "Only you can prevent forest fires." And an accidental magical inferno would kill me just as easily, as well, anything. 

 

    'Now how to fix the forest.' I thought as I walked closer to the devastation. I really needed some shoes and clothes for that matter. Why were extra-dimensional travelers always arriving everywhere naked? 

 

    

    In order to heal the damage that I had done to the forest, I had to come up with a whole new bevy of very utility-based spells. As each spell formed and a new one was needed, I let my affinities guide me in bringing the forest back to its pre-shuriken disaster state. 

 

    I sent out waves of healing and growth magic into the trees, repairing the damage. [you have learned the spell, mass healing, manipulate plant, rapid growth, heal plant, fertilize soil, invigorate, nutritious water and fuse.] It was a dizzying array of spells that I was notified with as I healed the forest back to new. Each spell came with a little bit of knowledge of what the spell could do and how it connected to the others.  

 

"There, good as new," I said, looking over my magical handy work. 

 

The other problem I had was I was still all fleshy, and a claw or tooth would more than likely be enough to end my life. I did not think I was going to be able to stand up to any form of attack. And the fact health was listed as a percent in my status page could only mean death followed a more natural course on this planet. 

 

    'How to fix the problem?' I mused to myself. 

 

I would need some form of automatic healing. Through my arcane mana manipulation, I knew it was possible to form such an enchantment. The trick was going to be in how to power it and what to make it from. using my earth affinity, I could create stone or, more aptly, move the stone. "I wonder if I could do the same with metal," I said out loud as I moved over to a stone that was the perfect height for sitting.

 

    "Why not? might as well give it a try." I focused on one of the most abundant elements that could be found on most planets. Iron. The effect was almost instant. Mana flowed from me, and the iron in the soil turned almost liquid. Not molten but like a superfluid. It moved quickly into a small cube. I received a notification.

 

    [You have learned the spell: Collect element: Base cost: N/A. Collect desired elements from the surrounding area. Level 1.]

 

    "Excellent, now what to do about my squishiness. I'm going to need armor and clothes. Can't walk around naked forever. Well, I suppose I could. No, definitely armor or clothes."

 

    I began creating cubes of different materials to better understand the mana cost of the various metals. Mild steel or iron cost the same as stone; absurdly low at .1 mana per cubic inch. Basically, I could make a cube one hundred feet long, wide, and high with the mana I had. As I created high carbon steel and other mixed alloys with iron though cost drastically increased. 

 

    I made different shapes and found that when I collected the metal, it would flow into any shape I had in my mind. As soon as it was collected and in that shape, I would need a different spell to reshape the metal. 

    [You have learned the spell: Metal shaping: Base cost: Error… 10 mana per second.]

 

The cost for the different materials came out too; high carbon spring steel with a molybdenum substrate cost 25 mana per cubic inch to create. Stainless steel cost 10 mana per cubic inch. Titanium costs 35 mana per cubic inch. Silver costs 45 mana per cubic inch. Gold's cost was at 85 mana per one-eighth cubic inch. Platinum costs 150 mana per one-sixteenth inches cubed. 

 

After I had a better idea of what the cost would be. I needed to make armor or something resembling it. "My best chance at comfort is going to be a woven and braided metal." 

 

What I came up with will forever haunt my nightmares. The chafing. The suit was what could only be described as a little kid's one-piece pajamas onesie; with a hood. The hood did not make it any cooler. It had clasped in the front to assist with donning the ridiculous thing. It even had the feet attached.

 

It was made from fine threads of stainless steel braided and woven together. I had tempered the threads to give it a metallic greenish-blue hug; instead of the polished reflection of normal stainless steel. It would serve to protect me, if only momentarily.

 

It was still a onesie, though.