World Seed

Author’s Corner: Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I may or may not be able to push out another chapter later today, depending on how the holiday goes on my end. But, as I had some free time right now, decided to go ahead and throw one up. Also, I’m on the lookout for any cover image for the story, as I suck at art and am incapable of making my own.

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Now that I was out of the magic class, if you could really call it that, I spoke a bit more with Jacobs before he went to go practice. Watching him walk away, I pulled up my contact list and went to the two names I didn’t personally add. “Damn fantasy names… can’t tell which of you is which… Oh well, just do a group chat then.”

With that in mind, I set up a group chat between myself and them. “You guys enjoying the game so far?” I asked curiously, waiting for their response.

A few moments later, the first to reply was Dravin, apparently my father. “Ah, there you are. Was wondering if you had gotten into the game yet, kiddo!” His voice sounded fairly normal, so it was likely that he either held a humanoid race or had one that possessed telepathy.

And of course, after him came my mother, whose voice was a bit off. “John! It’s good to hear from you.” Her voice sounded a bit phantasmal, as if a ghost was speaking.

“Yeah… it’s Falenel here, apparently. Can’t introduce myself otherwise.”

It took a moment before they responded to that, making me think that they hadn’t interacted with anyone else yet like I had. While we talked for a while, I managed to learn a few more things about the game. First of all, despite my surroundings there was still a heavy technology setting in the game. Likely, this was just a traditional starting area. For instance, my father chose to play as a mutant human with psychic abilities, while my mother chose to play a Shade, some sort of darkness elemental. Where my father started sounded like a large modern city, complete with hover cars and holograms. However, my mother was spawned in the middle of nowhere, some dark cave.

Strangely, it wasn’t all bad, as my mother didn’t spawn at level 1, but 20. She also had quite a few racial skills that let her survive despite spawning in a secluded area. According to her, Shades are a race not born from breeding, but from natural magic giving life to shadows. So, even though she may find other Shades eventually, they never really spawn together. I started wondering if that was true for all elementals. But really, my focus wasn’t as much on them, since I was here to level up and farm loot to sell. Since elementals don’t have a standard body type, and in most cases aren’t even corporeal, I didn’t need to concern myself too much with the details.

Now, I knew how to make spells, so I had to focus on that. My performance so far has told me that I am terrible at wielding weapons, so my only option is to make an attack spell or two. Right now, I just had the basic Gust and Nature’s Grasp spells, giving me a knockback and a hold. Since I wouldn’t be able to get a class until level 10, I had to focus on what I could do on my own.

Slowly, I made my way to the edge of the village, where I wouldn’t be disturbed while practicing. There were several different possibilities for attack spells in either of the fields of magic I already knew, but the trick was making one that wouldn’t be too much to handle at my level of skill. Wind blades took far more control than I had right now, same with poison darts or root spears. However, I could come up with simplified ways to get attack spells.

First, I decided to focus on wind. Since a wind blade wasn’t possible, I’d try for a wind bullet instead. Closing my eyes, I brought my hands out in front of me in the same motion as when I had first practiced my two current spells, allowing the mana to travel between my hands and circulate. Then, like before, I started attuning my mana to the wind, causing a small breeze to build between my hands.

Focusing my control, I condensed the breeze as tight as I could while making it spin, before I shot it off in front of me. When I opened my eyes, the barely visible ball of wind impacted a nearby tree, making barely an impact. However, it seemed to be enough to satisfy the system.